A proposed Iowa Energy Center facility to test and demonstrate the potential of biomass energy received approval Wednesday, Sept. 10, from the Iowa State Board of Regents.

The $990,000 facility will be built on the Iowa State University Agronomy/Agricultural Biosystems Engineering Research Farm seven miles west of Ames.

Floyd Barwig, IEC director, said the facility, which will be called BECON (Biomass Energy CONversion), will test and demonstrate new and existing biomass energy technologies.

“Biomass is generally defined as dedicated crops that can be grown for energy or crop wastes or animals wastes that can be used for energy or for materials or chemicals,” Barwig said.

The idea for BECON has its origins in a study conducted in the mid-1990s by an ISU professor, he said. The study showed considerable biomass resource potential in the state of Iowa.

A panel of experts from around the nation was formed to examine why biomass potential isn’t being captured.

The panel determined before it would be utilized, people would need to be shown the economics of it, as well as how biomass systems actually operate, he said.

“We think that Iowa is the perfect place to do it,” he said. “If it doesn’t work in Iowa, where would it work?”

The primary goal of the work at BECON will be to give Iowa businesses and investors an opportunity to see various types of biomass conversion technologies in action and stimulate interest in biomass alternatives.

It will also offer education and training opportunities for engineers and technicians.

The main building at BECON facility will be approximately 20,000 square feet and sit on eight acres of land.

The facility will eventually include a greenhouse and an aqua culture facility. The energy produced at the facility may eventually be used to operate the greenhouse and aqua culture facility.

Inside the BECON’s main building, there will be room for testing and demonstrating biomass gasifiers, ethanol conversion techniques, biodiesel fuels and other emerging biomass energy technologies.

The building will house offices, conference rooms, a library and laboratories, he said, but the majority of the building will be high ceiling space “to accommodate fairly large scale pilot plant experiments,” Barwig said.

The experiments will range from “bench work” toward commercial systems, he said, to investigating the real operations of biomass methods and the economics of instituting such systems.

“The kind of research we’re looking at will focus on using biomass in combustion systems,” he said.

Through heating and anaerobic bacterial digestion, researchers hope to convert materials to things like methane and ethanol.

One system, Barwig said, will mix crop wastes with manure in an anaerobic digestion system to make methane to be used to run a small gas turbine which could drive an electric generator.

Heat coming off the back of the turbine, in turn, could be used to heat the building and water.

Also, the sludge produced by the digestion process could be used as fertilizer, which Barwig said would not have the strong odor the original manure had.

“We’ll be combining multiple purposes,” he said.

IEC was created in 1990, funded by a surcharge on electric and gas sales in Iowa, with a mission to conduct and sponsor research and information dissemination on energy efficiency and renewable energy, he said.

Several Iowa Energy Center projects related to biomass energy will be transferred to BECON, Barwig said.

While the program will be administered by ISU, Barwig said it works through a competitive grant process with other universities and organizations in Iowa, so there will be a variety of people working at the facility.

The facility is expected to be completed in 1998.