ASU students develop Dog Waste Digester to power the Cosmos park lights
A team of engineering and technology students from ASU’s Polytechnic campus was in news earlier for it was seeking to develop a dog waste digester based on the anaerobic digestion. Now as they have created it successfully, these digesters will generate energy for the lamps of Cosmo Dog Park in Gilbert. The digester will use the byproduct of anaerobic digestion process, methane, to generate the electricity, which is a highly productive way to fix the problem of waste heaps gifted by nearly 200 dogs visiting the park every day.
It’s estimated that 60,0000 dogs visit the Cosmos dog park every year and the town has received awards from Dog Fancy magazine and MSN for the best dog park and now it has gained one more point by going green through the innovation of ASU students. As a bonus to environment, the innovation will help reducing amount of methane, a contributor in the green house effect.
It wasn’t an easy task to build the digesters as high temperatures in Arizona, over 100, hinders the feasibility of the waste breaking process. Students propose to bury the digester in the ground, which will keep the temperature down and solve the odor problem as well. The project required a huge amount of money to convert the theoretical knowledge of students into a real innovation and fortunately, Gilbert town and other sponsors involved in waste management helped the students raising required $25,000. The project built as a part of ASU’s iProject program, is a fantastic platform to put the classroom knowledge into practical innovations. ASU faculty and team mentors wish to create engineers who can put their knowledge into innovations for the betterment of the society.
Now, the visitors are just required to collect the dog waste in a plastic bag to deposit in the digesters and help in accomplishing the purpose of this innovation. Dog owners can give a helping hand too, if they wish to, by stirring the waste as it helps mixing the waste.