TUAT's competitive research program "TAMAGO" in FY2018

Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT) in Japan is a science research university that navigates the future through innovation by state-of-the-art science and technology. Under the President's vision for the medium-term goals and plans (FY2016 to FY2021), TUAT strives to strategically strengthen its leading role by “building a world-class research university”. Toward this goal, a new internal competitive research program, called TAMAGO*, was implemented in FY2018. TAMAGO facilitates the creation and nurturing of interdisciplinary research teams that challenge existing paradigms and tackle unsolved scientific issues. Each team comprises top-notch researchers from both the Institute of Agriculture and the Institute of Engineering at TUAT. The team’s research efforts will ultimately lead to the core of open innovation at TUAT.

*: TAMAGO (meaning “egg” in Japanese), Technologically Advanced Research through Marriage of Agriculture and Engineering as Groundbreaking Organization.

Plant “Symbiosis” Batteries with Efficient Power Generation/Storage

 

The team head: Katsuhiko Naoi, Ph.D. Professor, Division of Applied Chemistry, Institute of Engineering.

 

 

This interdisciplinary project is ultimately aimed for the establishment of plant batteries with “double harvest system”, which enable both the symbiosis of plants and power generation. Plant environment generates electricity through the decomposition of photosynthesized organic compounds via electrochemically active microorganisms (bacteria) in the soil system. This is, in other words, a transformation of photoenergy (sunlight) into chemical energy (organic compounds), and then electrical energy (electricity). The generated electricity by the plant environment is, however, too feeble to be captured/stored in conventional batteries.

Our cooperative research team will tackle the issues from the different research perspectives ;

1. Horticultural Science : maximization of plant photosynthesis ability by plants selection, companion planting, and improvement in the plants cultivation methods.
   
   
2. Soil Microbiology : investigation of microbial community for the highly-efficient power generation and current collection in the soil.
   
   
3. Energy Materials / Capacitor Science : establishment of efficient energy storage system which enables a storage of the generated feeble current by designing new types of electrodes and combining different capacitors.

Comprehensive solution for microplastic pollution through interdisciplinary research in agriculture and engineering

The team head: Hideshige Takada, Ph.D. Professor, Division of Environmental Science on Biosphere, Institute of Agriculture.

The research team, comprised of 5 top-notch scientists in Agriculture and Engineering at TUAT, aims to be first to solve the social concern caused by microplastic pollution. The team’s outstanding state-of-the-art research will continue to provide a deeper understanding of the environmental distribution of microplastics and their harmful impact on living organisms. The team will work at reducing the risks of microplastics by developing new technology and materials based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). In addition, it plans to establish a research center by expanding this interdisciplinary research. The team’s ultimate goal is to contribute to a sustainable development in harmony with the global environment.

Development of nutrient up-cycling technology from wastewaters and wastes by an interdisciplinary approach in both agriculture and engineering

The team head: Akihiko Terada, Ph.D. Professor, Division of Applied Chemistry, Institute of Engineering.

Now is the time when wastewater discharged from both human and industrial activities is called “Resource Water” or “Enriched Water” They are thus considered as resource and energy that should be recovered. In the water treatment field, there is a paradigm shift in the development of technology from pollutant removal to the recovery of resources and energy. Innovation is, therefore, required to efficiently capture resources from wastewaters and solid wastes. The interdisciplinary research aims at developing new recovery technologies from nitrogen and phosphorus compounds, which cause eutrophication and water pollution. The overarching goal of this team is to explore new microorganisms turning these materials into valuable products, to harness them, and to build a recovery technology platform towards a new nitrogen management system.