We have a winner in the Recycle Ike contest.

A team of Rice scientists and students won a city contest Wednesday to devise a new way to recycle tree debris.

The winners of Houston's "Recycle Ike" contest accepted $10,000 in prize money, which they plan to use to build a research bioreactor on campus. The team of seven included students, graduate students and professors.

The research bioreactor is a type of kiln to heat biomass from shredded trees to 400-500 degrees Celsius, creating "biochar charcoal" that can be sold for soil enrichment. One byproduct would be methane gas, which could be sold for energy production. The charcoal also could bring in revenue credits if President-Elect Barack Obama institutes a cap-and-trade carbon market, as the Rice team anticipates.

"The city could actually turn a profit by doing something like this," said team member Jeremy Caves, a senior majoring in earth science.