Turning Trash into
Cash
Perhaps no company’s name better simplifies its mission than
Trash 2 Cash-Energy, a spinout from the University of South
Florida that does just what its name implies: turns garbage
into a profitable source of energy.
The technology behind
the company came
from the laboratories
of USF’s department
of chemical
& biomedical
engineering, where
two professors and
three graduate
students worked to
further their research
into the catalysts that
produce “syngas,”
or synthesis gas used
in the creation of
synthetic petroleum.
The “trash” part of the equation is the first step; landfills emit a
mixture of gases like methane, which is burned or released into
the atmosphere, but is commonly synthesized for use in electric
generation.
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“We initially set out to compete with the
current methods for converting landfill
gas into usable energy sources,” said
John Kuhn, Ph.D., one of the faculty
members involved in the research and a
co-founder of the company. “Whereas
many solutions keep the excess methane
in a gaseous form, our process converts
it to a liquid hydrocarbon that can be
used to produce diesel fuel, helping to
power garbage trucks or to sell.”
Based on their patented process, the
enterprising students and faculty put
together a proposal for commercializing
their research and entered it into a
business plan competition in 2012
called the Florida MegaWatt Ventures
challenge. Out of more than 60
entrants, Trash 2 Cash-Energy took
home the grand prize of $100,000, as
well as entrepreneurial training to get
the company moving. Since then, the
company found its home in USF’s Tampa
Bay Technology Incubator, continued
to rank as a finalist in other business
competitions and paired with additional
USF researchers thanks to The Corridor’s
Matching Grants Research Program.