Explanation of an industrial application of black soldier fly converting food waste into valuable products

1/21/2019

This is the second industrial project demonstration, to review the first demo, please use the link: what-we-do-in-china-teamwork-through-evo-jmgreen.html

Baotou is the largest city in Inner Mongolia Province (China) with around 3 million population. The lowest temperature in Baotou can reach down to -25 Celsius degree over winter. A black soldier fly facility is design and built by a joint effort with JM Green (China), Jinjiang Group (China), and EVO Conversion Systems (USA). This post is to explain the process of utilizing black soldier fly to convert waste into valuable insect products.

Baotou restaurant waste processing facility is collecting over 100 tons of organic waste per day, and is using the organic waste to produce biogas and insect protein.

The restaurant waste collected directly from the restaurants are sent into the facility for processing. The waste materials are being separated into four contents, and they are oil, water, solids, and contaminants such as plastic bags or broken glasses. We work with city law enforcement to ensure there is only human food grade waste are being collected. We don't handle municipal waste in this operation.

The shredded food waste are first being cooked with steam as a process to remove excess oil, as well as to sanitize the materials. The oil are collected for biogas production, the watery slurry are sent for biogas production.

The food waste solids coming out from the steam cooker are still steaming hot, so they are allowed to sit beside for cooling. The food waste materials is then being used for black soldier fly production.

The probiotic inoculation system is a smart mixer that can ensure consistent probiotic mixture in the IBC tank, to ensure proper fermentation taking place.

Fermentation process is done in these IBC tanks for easy storage. The fermentation process is a critical step in this system, as this process can drop the substrate pH down to 3.2, and can reduce many pathogens including those that could harm the BSF larvae. In addition, this process stabilizes the waste material and makes them ready to use anytime within 6 months.

Hatchery and neonate nursery. We raise the neonates with a special diet to ensure the healthiness of our insect workers.

The feeding system consists of a mixer, an auto-feeding towel, and an IBC unloader.

The mixer are built with an IBC unloader that lift and unload the materials from the IBC into the mixer. This step is necessary because the food substrate material has been separated into two phases (liquid and solid), and mixing can help the substrate become homogenized.

The automatic feeding tower is made with 6 pipes, corresponding to our bioconversion rack layer numbers. Each of the pipes are equipped with one flow meter to monitor the amount of feed passing through. The pipes can move on two axis on the horizontal directions. With one button push, the feeding machine can load 600kg into the bioconversion pans within 2 minutes.

This facility practices one time feeding, where the bioconversion rack only receives one time of feed at the beginning and will be sit in the bioconversion room for the remaining time. During the bioconversion period, many heat and ammonia are being generated, thereafter the central air conditioning system along with small air circulation units, and ammonia scrubber are necessary.

Within 8 days, the food substrate has been converted to larval mass and larval frass. Upon harvest, the frass is all loosened in texture and turns into a dark brown color.

The sifting system is comprised with a vacuum transporter and a frass separator. The vacuum transporter moves the larvae and frass content from the bioconversion pan into the storage vessel, then being elevated into the frass separator.

This process separates the black soldier fly larvae and the frass, which can be made into a variety of products.

In this plant, the larvae are dried using a tunnel style microwave oven, which produces a product with natural color and live looking appearance.

This facility at its full capacity produces 1300KG dried product a day.

Author: Spring Yang

15 Comments

David Henderson

1/23/2019 01:37:57 am

Fabulous!

Alejandro

2/7/2019 05:25:50 am

Great post, thanks for sharing.
One question. In one of the pictures it can be seen that the feed was put in the middle section of the long crate, leaving all borders and corners without feed. But in all the borders and corners, it is possible to see that there is another material (looks like sawdust). Is this "sawdust-looking like" material used to prevent larvae escaping from the crates when the feed is too wet? or does it have other function? Cheers!

Spring

2/8/2019 12:51:29 am

You are right, that prevents larvae from escaping

Adam Micyus

3/21/2019 10:58:30 am

It is probably wheat bran. It is very dry and absorbs excess moisture and becomes feed as well. Soldier Fly Larvae find dry environments to be hostile and avoid them. So the barrier provides a twofold purpose, Absorbing excess water to prevent larvae drowning and to prevent larvae escape by killing by desiccation or providing a hostile environment they will actively avoid.

Matt Sutton-Vermeulen

2/14/2019 11:51:25 am

Very creative thought process using the fermentation process to kill pathogens and stabilize at the same time. What do you do with the offtake from the ammonia scrubber?

2/14/2019 04:25:01 pm

We are still looking into opportunities for the scrubber offtake, though looks like using it as agricultural fertilizer is the easiest way.

Marc

12/1/2019 07:22:03 pm

There is the NH3 ammonia as fuel effort in the US of A. Their idea is to take stranded electric and make a liquid fuel of Ammonia.

Jerry

5/16/2019 02:59:30 am

Incredible engineering work.
Quick question: you are doing only one feeding, and it looks like a thick layer. How do you prevent rotting, bacteria and mold? Also, since it's a thick layer, how do you prevent anerobic activity at the bottom of the feed layer?

5/16/2019 03:32:36 am

Our fermentation process inhibits the rotting and uncontrolled molding, and in this feeding system we want to keep the undigested feed at anaerobic condition to prevent molding. Our pan also help preventing these problems

5/16/2019 05:15:15 am

Amazing 👌
How is the pan helping prevent bacteria build up?
Also, from reading I learned that other than labor, the other major cost of production is climate control.
How do you control the temperature in the rearing space while having to circulate a lot of air to prevent ammonia accumulation?

Max

6/28/2019 03:21:07 am

Amazing. Can you help me to contact company build automatic feeding tower . I want to know something about that. Thank you so much

6/28/2019 03:26:17 am

You can email yfc@jmgreen.cn

Alessio

8/17/2019 12:11:55 pm

Amazing post, thanks for writing it. One question, you say the plant produces 1300KG of dried larvae per day, but at the beginning of the post you write the plan is treating 100 Tonnes per day of organic waste. I thought you’d get much more dried larvae from 100 Tonnes, maybe I am missing something, could you help me understand, thanks.

8/17/2019 09:33:20 pm

Hi Alessio, thanks for your comment. The site collects 100 tons a day, though 80% of them are free flowing liquid, and those are sent to biogas reactor. Hope this helps.

Dale Annison

12/30/2019 09:07:21 pm

What strains of probiotics is to promote fermentation, and do you culture these as a part of the production cycle?

Black Soldier Fly

Explanation of an industrial application of black soldier fly converting food waste into valuable products

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