Waste to Resource Lab
Roy Posmanik
Laboratory
About
Our goal is to recover renewable energy, bio-based chemicals and agricultural nutrients from food production waste streams, while minimizing their carbon footprints. We combine fundamental and applied research to develop sustainable processes by integrating biological and thermo-chemical treatments to recover valuable resources from agricultural waste streams.
LAB News
Our PRIMA project was selected for funding
Jan 4, 2023
We are honored to be part of this great consortium to create a circular economy with the black soldier fly
Jan 4, 2023
How Your Food Waste Could Eventually Power Your Home
Time Magazine article featuring our
Bioresource Technology paper.
It was a great honor to be a part of an Israeli delegation to Prague and discuss issues of sustainable agriculture with our colleagues from the Czech University of Life Science
June 4, 2022
Ran Darzi and Osama Khoury gave great talks on the DDD International Conference in Sede Boqer
Jan 4, 2023
It was a real pleasure to host this great LCA-TEA workshop by Prof. Deborah Sills funded by BARD
March 29, 2022
A new book chapter is now available in IWA publishing
March 29, 2022
Congratulations to Rani who published his first PhD paper on upcycling of plastic waste
March 27, 2022
We are proud to be a part of Volcani Institute were people from all religions are working together in harmony for decades.
A short video from Newe Ya'ar.
June 2, 2021
Our new paper is now available in Bioresource Technology
April 25, 2021
Our new paper is now available in Journal of Environmental Management
February 9, 2021
October 13, 2020
Click here to watch the whole session of Agriculture-Environment-Energy from the previous conference of Science and Environment (in Hebrew).
October 12, 2020
Ran Darzi gave an excellent talk on his research during the annual conference of environmental science
Click here to watch (in Hebrew).
August 25, 2020
Our new paper is now available online in Energy Conversion and Management.
May 17, 2020
Our collaboration with UCLA, Cornell University and Ben Gurion University in now available online.
April 09, 2020
Our collaboration with the University of Tubingen, Germany on the biochemical methane potential (BMP) assay is now available online.
February 29, 2020
Our new paper, a collaboration with the beef-cattle section at Newe Ya'ar, is now available online.
January 01, 2020
Our collaboration with Cornell and Bucknell Universities is available online.
January 01, 2020
Special seminar by Prof. Deborah Sills.
For details please contact Roy.
December 30, 2019
This year the symposium (in Hebrew) will focus on Moringa Oleifera as a new crop in Israel.
Please contact Roy for more details.
December 25, 2019
We have such a great group of students :)
December 03, 2019
We are so proud of you Rani!
November 06, 2019
Roy will give a seminar (in English) at The Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot.
The seminar will cover hydrothermal processing of agro-waste: a circular economy approach to improve resource recovery and minimize environmental pollution.
September 18, 2019
t was a real honor to represent Volcani Center at the Wegmans Farm Summit and speak about sustainability and circular economy with organic farmers, Cornell faculty and students.
June 19, 2019
It was a real pleasure to come back the TAU and present our work on circular economy, plastic waste treatment and sustainable agriculture. See you next year.
June 04, 2019
Come to Sede Boqer campus and meet with us at the annual conference of the Israel Society of Soil Science
April 18, 2019
Wheat harvest at Newe Ya’ar.
Happy spring break from #PosmanikLab
April 15, 2019
Great panels and lectures by our wonderful students and postdocs following the traditional picnic gathering.
Happy Passover from #PosmanikLab
March 15, 2019
It was a real pleasure to represent Israel at the COST action for sustainable valorization of lignin and learn how we can bring the circular bioeconomy to agriculture.
March 06, 2019
Our abstract for the 13th Dahlia Greidinger Symposium is now available online
January 31, 2019
Our collaboration with University of Tübingen, Germany and Cornell University is now available online.
The paper demonstrates how to circulate the energy, available at dairy farm, not only for heat and power but also to cool down the cows. Very relevant for future climate scenarios.
February 12, 2019
Ran will present his poster at the annual conference of the Israeli Chemical Society. Good luck Ran!
February 10, 2019
Roy will present our lab activity regarding circular economy approaches in sustainable agriculture.
Looking forward to establishing new collaboration with Cornell!
December 03, 2018
In this workshop we will present several aspects in this project to start a fruitful dialog between research scientists and local farmers.
August 03, 2018
Our lab invites applications for postdoctoral fellowships. Bringing the circular economy to agriculture and food industries. please visit https://www.agri.gov.il/en/pages/1831.aspx
July 19, 2018
Our collaboration with UCLA and UCR is now available in Bioresource Tecnology.
An interesting circular economy approach to utilize energy, nutrients and waste heat from manure and food waste via integration among anaerobic digestion, hydrothermal liquefaction and membrane distillation.
July 08, 2018
We are looking for excellent students to join the lab.
Please contact Roy.
May 02, 2018
Our collaboration with the University of Tübingen was successfully presented at the 5th International Conference on Renewable Energy Gas Technology, REGATEC 2018.
February 27, 2018
On behalf of the organizing committee, I am happy to invite submissions to SWWS2018 - IWA 15th Small Water and Wastewater Treatment systems and 7th Resource Oriented Sanitation conferences that will occur concurrently in Haifa Israel on 14-18 Oct. 2018
Deadline for submission of abstracts was extended to April 15th 2018.
Please do not hesitate to contact me with any query
February 10, 2018
The final version of our article "Characterization of the solid products from hydrothermal liquefaction of waste feedstocks from food and agricultural industries" is now available online.
Welcome Amir Agabaria our new lab manager
January 31, 2018
Happy to announce that our lab has a new lab manager.
Please contact Amir at aamir@volcani.agri.gov.il
December 26, 2017
Dr. Deborah Sills from Bucknell University will visit our lab and will give two seminars on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA):
1) Sede Boqer Campus (ZIWR, BGU): Dec. 27th at 1pm
2) Neve Ya'ar Research center (ARO): Jan. 2nd at 11am
December 16, 2017
Our collaboration with the University of Valladolid (Spain) and Bucknell university (USA) is now available at ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering.
December 12, 2017
NBC news article on our story of food waste valorization.
December 08, 2017
Our new review paper is now available in Bioresource Technology.
November 28, 2017
By combining engineering expertise with chemistry and biology, WWTP operators can convert the solid sludge they generate into an array of useful chemical products.
November 25, 2017
We are looking for excellent master students, doctoral students and postdocs. If you are interested in joining our group please contact Roy Posmanik.
November 11, 2017
Our recent LCA paper was published in Applied Energy.
November 21, 2017
Roy Posmanik gave a talk about sustainable resource recovery from dairy waste at the International Workshop for Nitrogen Transformation, Nazareth, Israel. [Link to program]
October 16, 2017
Joe Usack presented our work at the 15th IWA World Conference on Anaerobic Digestion.
October 04, 2017
Celia Martinez presented our work at the 10th World Congress of Chemical Engineering.
October 02, 2017
A Time magazine article featuring our recent Bioresource Technology paper.
October 02, 2017
Cornell Chronicle tells our story
October 02, 2017
WasteDive tells our story
Research
Biomass to Energy
Most Waste-to-Energy technologies are still at an emerging stage with a lot of room for innovation. Process optimization requires fundamental research on each one of the conversion processes. An important step involves experimental research to identify chemical and metabolic pathways that will be essential to maximize conversion yields of biomass to biofuels for both thermochemical and biological platforms..
Upcycling of plastic waste
Accumulation of plastic waste is harming eco-systems and it is time to move towards a circular plastic economy. Sustainable production and recycling processes for plastics are challenged mostly by the lack of renewable building blocks. We investigate hydrothermal processing (HTP) as a platform for depolymerization of commonly used plastic polymers.
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Nutrient Cycling
Holistic approaches to valorize waste streams seek to recover nutrients in a reusable form for further agricultural applications. Our lab seeks to better understand the fate of recycled nutrients and their incorporation into the complex plant-soil-atmosphere system.
Life Cycle Assessment
The development of sustainable and commercial-scale waste to resource systems must be supported by a life cycle environmental impact assessment to define research priorities. In addition, financing conditions, that would make waste to resource systems attractive, have to be determined. Specific parameters that account for uncertainties related to the development of these technologies will provide more useful information for investors and policy makers.
People
Dr. Roy Posmanik
Group leader
Roy works in the field of environmental science and engineering with the interest in sustainable resource recovery from agricultural and food processing waste.
Group pictures
Dr. Matat Zohar
Lab manager
Matat holds a PhD in biology from Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
She joined the group at 2019, working on the integration between waste management and plant development.
Dr. Deborah Sills
Visiting research scientist
Deborah is an associate Prof. of civil and environmental engineering at Bucknell University. During her sabbatical in our lab (supported by BARD) Deborah's research is on microbial risk assessment in animal farming systems.
Dr. Ezra Orlovski
Research associate
Ezra holds a PhD from Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
He joined the group at 2020, working on wastewater based epidemiology.
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Ran is a PhD candidate, co-advised with Prof. Yael Dubowski, Technion.
Research: Chemical recycling of plastic waste in agriculture.
Osama Khoury
PhD student
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Osama is a PhD candidate co-advised with Prof. Sabrina Spatari, Technion.
Research: LCA-TEA for hydrothermal systems.
Itamar Kaffman
MSc student
Itamar is an MSc student (HUJI), co-advised with Dr. Guy Levi (ARO and Dr. Michael Borisover (ARO)
Research: Resource recovery from anaerobic digestates
Achiya Husrabi
MSc student
Achiya is an MSc student (HUJI) co-advised with Dr. Guy Levi (ARO and Dr. Michael Borisover (ARO)
Research: The role of organic carbon in soil amended with anaerobic digestate
Alumni
Research: Sustainable co-digestion systems.
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Research: Phosphorus recovery from municipal solid sludge using hydrothermal treatment.
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Research: Degradation of plastic polymers using sub-critical water.
Research: Biodegradability of plastic waste.
Research: Nitrogen recovery and reuse from anaerobic digestate.
Sandra Khoury
B.Sc. student
Research: Antimicrobial activity of hydrothermal process water.
