Waste from chicken farming provides a cheap source of biodiesel

[Sigma]

This is encouraging. http://www.scidev.net/en/news/chicken-waste-makes-cheap-food-friendly-biofuel-.html

Chicken waste "makes cheap, food-friendly biofuel"
Wagdy Sawahel
12 August 2009 | EN

Waste from chicken farming provides a cheap source of biodiesel

Waste from chicken farming could provide an unlikely source of biodiesel now that an environmentally friendly process to produce good-quality fuel from it has proved successful.

Chicken-feather meal is a by-product of large-scale poultry production. It often includes blood and offal, and contains about 11 per cent fat.

Unlike conventional biofuel sources such as sugar cane or corn, it is not in demand for human food but it is used as animal feed because of its high protein content and fertiliser for its high nitrogen content.

Researchers boiled the feather meal to extract the fat and then processed the fat into biodiesel using potassium hydroxide as a catalyst. The process produces 7â€"11 per cent biodiesel of good quality, comparable to biodiesels from soybean and palm oil.

Susanta Mohapatra, co-author of the study and a researcher at the University of Nevada in Reno, United States, told SciDev.Net: "This process is very economical and does not use expensive or toxic chemicals. It will benefit both developed and developing countries."

Mohapatra says that in countries where there are large poultry farms, implementation of the process is feasible within a year or two.

"To implement this technology in developing countries [where there are few large poultry farms] you may need an additional step to collect the poultry waste. If this can be done by a company and/or by government regulations, this technology will have a huge immediate impact on their economy."

The researchers are developing a production process that could reduce the price of the feather-meal biodiesel still further, Mohapatra added. He estimates that the manufacturing cost should be around US$0.26 per litre (US$1 per gallon ) for an average-capacity biodiesel plant, making it cheaper than soy biodiesel, for example, which costs US$1.85â€"2.11 per litre (US$7â€"8 per gallon).

The study was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry last month (22 July).

[Dog Walker]

Everywhere you go to eat you see that anything made with chicken is "boneless, skinless chicken breasts".  Ever wonder what happens to the skin and bones?  There is a plant in Georgia that is taking this waste product of a Tyson plant and rendering the fat from the skin and bones to make biodiesel.

First Coast BioFuels in Lake City buys the biodiesel and blends it with petrodiesel to sell to JEA, and the Navy here in Jax.

It is not necessary to use food to make biodiesel even now.  And no, it doesn't smell like chicken when you burn it in your car or truck.  (Sadly!)

[Overstreet]

Sounds more like waste from chicken processing not chicken farming. They don't take the feathers off till they get to the plant. Waste at the chicken farm goes more to the alligator farm out back or the compost pile.

As to the boneless chicken breast....... that is where all the buffalo chicken wings come from.  The cheaper legs and thighs are also sold in stores.

[buckethead]

If these parts must be boiled to extract the fat, is it really an economical use of resources? How much energy is used to get the equivellant of one gallon of diesel?

[Sigma]

good point.  where would this waste normally go?

[Dog Walker]

It can't cost more to produce than they get for it or they wouldn't be doing it.  Maybe they are burning feathers to fire their boilers, LOL!  Wouldn't want to live downwind of that!

[buckethead]

It can't cost more to produce than they get for it or they wouldn't be doing it.  Maybe they are burning feathers to fire their boilers, LOL!  Wouldn't want to live downwind of that!

Ignoring dollars, I was considering only energy efficiecy.

Does it consume as much energy as it produces? If they are useing electricity to boil the waste, then that same electricity could have gone into a vehicle. If they used natural gas, the same.

If they can double the effective fuel used, then it would seem wise. (The exact ratio of energy used/fuel for potential energy created that would be considered feasible should also consider emissions created by both fuel burned during extraction and fuel burned as diesel.)

It is not my intent to discourage innovation, but practicality should be in the forefront before widespread utilization is implimented.

[RiversideLoki]

Now think about it.. if they make those dinosaur chickens, MASSIVE DINOSAUR CHICKEN WASTE! We'll never run out of power!

STEVE LOOK AT THIS!



I AM ONE BANANA SHORT OF A BUNCH! YESSS!

[Dog Walker]

I don't know how much energy is used to render the fat from waste chicken parts, but do know that the energy used in the conversion from fat to biodiesel is tiny.  There is a lot more potential energy created than used especially if you are using what is essentially a waste product.

My point with the dollars was that energy costs money so the investment in energy to render the fat must be less than the return of potential energy in the fat.  Fat rendering can take place at very low temperatures.  It doesn't take frying, just steaming will do and there is a lot of fat on a chicken.  The rendered skin and bone can be turned into protein meal too which is used in pet food and cattle feed.

These big, industrial food processors are doing everything they can to avoid making waste products.  Even the Budweiser brewery here in Jacksonville, recovers the beer that spills on the floors and the beer that is used to flush the pipes, then distills the alcohol from it for industrial ethanol.  The remains of the mash in the brewing vats are turned into cattle and chicken feed and the nutrient-rich water that is extracted from the mash is sprayed on their sod farms.

Using these waste products to make our fuels makes more sense than burning multi-million year old algae, moss and methane; otherwise known as oil, coal and natural gas.

[buckethead]

Very good points, DW.