Fuel from Chicken Feathers?

March 22nd, 2010 -

If we go by the stats, every year 11 billion pounds of poultry industry waste accumulates annually, because we have gigantic appetite for poultry products. They can’t be stuffed into pillows. Mostly they are utilized as low-grade animal feed. Scientists in Nevada have created a new and environmentally friendly process for developing biodiesel fuel from ‘chicken feather meal’. Professor Manoranjan ‘Mano’ Misra and his team members at the University of Nevada discovered that chicken feather meal consists of processed chicken feathers, blood, and innards. Prof. Misra has been honored as the 2010 Regents’ Researcher by the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents.

Chicken feather meal is processed at high temperatures with steam. This feather meal is used as animal feed and also as fertilizer. Chicken feather meal has high percentage of protein and nitrogen. The researchers have paid attention to the 12% fat content of the chicken feather meal. They have arrived at the conclusion that feather meal has potential as an alternative, non-food feedstock for the production of biofuel. They have extracted fat from chicken feather meal using boiling water and processing it into biodiesel. Another advantage of extracting fat from feather meal is it provides both a higher-grade animal feed and a better nitrogen source for fertilizer applications.

Stats tell us that if we take into account the amount of feather meal generated by the poultry industry each year, researchers could produce 153 million gallons of biodiesel annually in the U.S. and 593 million gallons worldwide.

Prof. Misra is the director of the University of Nevada, Reno’s Renewable Energy Centre. He has published 183 technical papers in the areas of materials, nanotechnology and environmental and mineral process engineering until now. He also has 10 patents published and another 12 are pending. He has secured over $25 million dollars in grant funding.

Other research is going on regarding chicken feather meal. It contains stronger and more absorbent keratin fiber than wood. Professor Richard P. Wool of the chemical engineering department of the University of Delaware, is trying to carbonized chicken feathers. This type of chicken feather bears a resemblance to highly versatile (and tiny) carbon nanotubes. This chicken feather can be utilized to store hydrogen for fuel-cell vehicles. If we visualize carefully we can see that very tiny natural sponges of chicken feathers have a big weight advantage over metal hydride storage.

Wool’s graduate student Erman Senöz in the project explained that they applied the pyrolysis process. During this process a very high heat without combustion in the absence of oxygen is applied. This yields fibers “that are micro-porous, very thin and hollow inside like carbon nanotubes. They start forming at 350 degrees Centigrade, and above 500 C they collapse. We’re trying to find the perfect temperature.”

Another advantage of this process is there won’t be lack of chicken-feed, because the fiber is taken from the central quill part. It leaves the fluffy feathers available to force-feed livestock. Feather fiber is quite cheap, and the “gas tank” equivalent would cost around $200.

SOURCE :** http://www.alternative-energy-news.info

India launches black carbon initiative

Source: Economic Times, New Delhi, 01 April 2011

The government has launched an initiative to study the phenomenon of black carbon, commonly known as soot. Black carbon is a form of particulate air pollution, produced from incomplete combustion from biomass burning, cooking with solid fuels, and diesel exhaust.

Over the last few years there has been a concerted effort to address the impact of black carbon emissions on global warming. However, the knowledge and understanding about black carbon is incomplete and uncertain. The Black Carbon Research Initiative, under the aegis of the Indian Network of Climate Change Assessment, is an attempt to address these gaps in knowledge and answer the crucial question of its impact on climate change.

The initiative comes as focus shifts to consider the contribution of non-green house gas emissions like black carbon to global warming. There is a growing understanding that addressing black carbon emissions could help reduce the rate of global warming.

As the lifetime of black carbon in the atmosphere is short, from a few days to weeks, it is felt that reducing its emissions would give more immediate tangible results than those achieved by reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, which have an atmospheric lifetime of more than 100 years.

The Black Carbon Research Initiative is five-year research programme at a cost of 200 crore. It is the joint effort of the ministries of environment, earth sciences, science and technology and Isro. The initiative, which will involve 101 institutions, will build on the existing aerosol study network.

For India, finding answers to the black carbon phenomenon is important. The need to understand the phenomenon of black carbon comes especially as some estimates suggest that India and China account for 25-35% of global black carbon emissions. The initiative sets out the science programme to respond to the scientific questions surrounding black carbon.

"We need to be proactive in our approach. This is an important step forward, not just for India but for the international community," environment minister Jairam Ramesh said. The initiative is part of India's efforts to build its scientific capacity to better understand climate change and its impacts.

"This is one of the most ambitious programmes in the world on aerosol research and black carbon. Today is a culmination of over 25 years of research from pioneering Indian scientists. India has positioned itself to be second to none in this area of research. Decades from now this programme will be recognised as giving India protection from natural and manmade disasters alike," the world's leading expert on black carbon, V Ramanathan, said.

The initiative will undertake a detailed study on the contribution of black carbon to regional warming, effect on cloud formation and monsoons, and its role in the retreat of the Himalayan glacier. The research will also attempt to map and understand the variation in black carbon formation depending on location, height and time of day.

For the minister the most significant aspect was the link with glaciers. "There are many quacks in glacier science. Some of them have been exposed. There is complete difference in behaviour of Himalayan glaciers and arctic glaciers which need to be studied and need to establish our own scientific capacity to understand this change," Ramesh said.