Department: Engineering 

Areas of expertise:

• Resource recovery from organic waste streams
• Experimental setup and modeling of engineered bioprocesses (anaerobic digestion)
• Life cycle assessment and techno-economic analysis
• Process engineering 

Puente’s research focuses on finding better ways to turn organic waste, such as food scraps, cooking grease, fats, oils and sewage sludge, into useful resources. He uses a process called anaerobic digestion, which breaks down waste without oxygen to produce energy and other valuable products. His expertise includes designing, building and testing small and pilot-scale treatment systems and studying how different types of waste can be processed together. He also evaluates the environmental and economic benefits of renewable technologies. His overall goal is to keep organic waste out of landfills, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and recover valuable resources that can be put back into the supply chain. 

Puente earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at San Francisco de Quito University, and master's and doctorate degrees in environmental engineering at the University of Michigan.

Media contact: Eric Gorton, gortonej@jmu.edu, 540-908-1760.