2026 Undergraduate Research Showcase

Compositional Analysis of DAF and SAF Biomasses for HTL

Document Type

Student Presentation

Presentation Date

4-24-2026

Faculty Sponsor

Dr. Owen McDougal

Abstract

Millions of gallons of wastewater are produced daily from dairy processing that are treated by either dissolved air flotation (DAF) or suspended air flotation (SAF) to remove insoluble particulates from the water. The particles consist of proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates that aggregate to flocculants and coagulants that float to the water's surface where it is skimmed off. This biomass contains 85-95% water making transportation for disposal expensive. However, these byproducts can be processed further through hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) to reduce water content and turn the biomass into high-value biocrude oil with high energy outputs. HTL performs best with high moisture content samples, as the water acts as a solvent, reactant, and catalyst at high pressure and temperature. In order to determine how the filtrated biomasses would behave after HTL processing, DAF and SAF biomasses were analyzed to establish their compositional makeup. DAF exhibited a higher energy, ash, and oil content but a lower moisture content in comparison to SAF, meaning DAF likely has more valuable biocrude oil while SAF is more effective at reducing moisture. Future work aims to collect compositional information on the products produced by HTL to decide which filtration method produces higher quantities of high-value products.

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