OSU partners on $6M project to turn livestock waste into energy, water
Nov. 6, 2025 - A $2 million share of a $6 million National Science Foundation grant is fueling a unique collaboration among Oklahoma State University and two other land-grant universities to turn animal waste into energy and clean water, a development that could transform the future of Oklahoma agriculture.
Researchers at OSU are leading efforts to merge three separate technologies that generate methane, clean wastewater and recover nutrients from animal waste into one streamlined system. The goal is to help farmers reduce water use, lower costs and lessen the environmental impact of livestock production, all while improving long-term sustainability across the Great Plains.
Breaking traditional boundaries
The project brings together Kansas State University, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and OSU in what researchers describe as a truly collaborative effort that breaks traditional academic silos.
“Each aspect of this project has people from all the universities working on it,” said Kiranmayi Mangalgiri, assistant professor of water quality in OSU’s Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering. “There’s a professor from Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma, all working on wastewater, and there’s another professor from Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma, working on the anaerobic digestion.”
This approach differs from typical multi-university projects where each institution handles a separate component. Instead, researchers from all three universities collaborate on every aspect of the technology development.
The collaboration focuses on addressing critical challenges facing agricultural producers, particularly water scarcity in western Oklahoma, where farms rely heavily on the declining Ogallala Aquifer.
Douglas Hamilton, OSU associate professor in biosystems and agricultural engineering, brings four decades of experience working with swine operations to ensure the technology remains practical for farmers.
“I want to make sure that whatever NSF is doing and what NSF has given their money to would be applicable to actual swine farmers, not just some pie in the sky idea that’s not going to float because it was impractical,” Hamilton said.
The integrated system combines three existing technologies: anaerobic digestion that converts animal waste into methane gas for energy, advanced wastewater treatment that produces water clean enough for irrigation or even drinking, and nutrient recovery that extracts valuable phosphate fertilizer from waste.
Economic drivers and environmental benefits
Recent changes in federal renewable energy credits have made bio-gas production from animal waste increasingly profitable. Hamilton explained that farms can now earn substantial revenue by capturing methane that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere.
“All the companies that have pigs that are making gas and letting it go into the atmosphere now say, ‘My goodness, we can get more than the return on investment that we can make,'” Hamilton said. “What’s really being driven is what they call the renewable natural gas, and specifically renewable natural gas going into compressed gas engines.”
Oklahoma’s extensive network of natural gas pipelines provides an additional advantage, allowing farms to inject biogas directly into the existing infrastructure.
The environmental benefits extend beyond energy production. By treating wastewater for reuse, farms could significantly reduce their draw on groundwater resources.
“If you are in the western part of Oklahoma, where you are relying on groundwater, and those groundwater levels are just falling so fast that it’s not sustainable anymore to continue to use water in the way that we are using it, this is one of the ways you can be a little bit more water neutral,” Mangalgiri said.
Technical challenges and timeline
While the individual technologies have proven successful in laboratory settings, combining them presents unique challenges. Mangalgiri noted that the team must ensure the systems work together efficiently.
“The question is, when you all put them together, what are some of the practical challenges in making them run?” she said. “During the energy recovery you can generate some other chemicals that you can use for the wastewater treatment, so that will save you some cost. You don’t have to buy additional chemicals because you’re actually generating it in your own system.”
The four-year NSF-funded project follows an ambitious timeline. Researchers plan to complete bench-scale system testing within two years, build a pilot reactor by the end of year three and demonstrate the technology on farms during the final year.
Hamilton’s team will develop 30-liter digesters for testing at OSU’s facilities, while Kansas State focuses on a mobile demonstration unit that can travel between farms.
Looking ahead to the future
Beyond the technical development, the project includes a sociological component led by Michael Long, OSU professor of sociology, who will survey farmers about their willingness to adopt the new technology.
The research team also plans to offer seed grants for complementary projects that could enhance the system’s effectiveness, whether through business implementation, marketing strategies or additional scientific research.
“We’re trying to develop one system for agricultural producers to handle their animal waste while also saving energy and water,” Mangalgiri said. “We also want the process to have little to no impact on the environment.”
If successful, the integrated system could help farms become more self-sufficient while contributing to the region’s environmental sustainability. As Hamilton put it, the goal is to make agricultural operations “go away from the take, and make the waste economy to more of a recycle, reuse economy.”
