EAT MOR CHIKIN

[Joes Place]

....Create environmentally safe keratin-based fuel cell membranes for a green economy.

40 million tons of chicken feathers are incinerated each year. Why not make renewable energy from them?​

Repurposing waste chicken feathers to make renewable energy

Researchers used chicken feather waste to make membranes for hydrogen fuel cells. The inventive membranes are non-toxic and cost less than traditional ones.

www.anthropocenemagazine.org

However, permeable keratin brings the possibility of a non-toxic alternative. First, Mezzenga and team set about isolating the keratin from chicken feathers using an environmentally-friendly process, then applying a heat treatment to transform the ingredient into fibrils. ​

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Crucially, these threadlike strands of protein molecules are incredibly resilient under conditions like the high temperatures of a fuel cell, and so made robust building blocks. The fibrils were then mixed with other ingredients to enhance their electrical conductivity, then dried and fashioned into a flat membrane. Finally, this was incorporated into the design of a commercial hydrogen fuel cell.​

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When the researchers tested it out, it was a feather-fuelled success: the fuel cell was able to convert hydrogen and oxygen into electricity, with proof in the fact that it powered two LED lamps. In further testing, it drove a motor-powered fan and a toy car. Aside from electricity, the fuel cell’s only byproduct was water. ​

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Mezzenga says he’s excited about “the clear demonstration that food waste, currently ending up in incineration or in the very best scenario—some sort of animal feed, can be converted into membranes for the generation of clean electric energy.” ​

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The energy the feather membrane created was not only comparable to that of traditional fuel cells, but cost less than half as much to produce, and without the usual environmental impact, the researchers found. “We start from side streams which are typically burned (generating CO2), and instead of contributing to CO2 emissions, we use them for production of energy at zero carbon footprint,” Mezzenga explains. “The overall carbon balance is therefore obviously negative.”​

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This no-emissions alternative to incineration could help to scale back agriculture’s considerable emissions impact, while powering the transition to clean energy—quite an impressive pair of accomplishments for the humble and unloved chicken feather. ​

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Mezzenga and team are now enthusiastically focused on bringing their inventive membrane tech into the mainstream. “We plan to convert this laboratory proof-of-concept into a profitable technology, capable of yielding clean energy while preserving the environment,” he says. “We are convinced this can be done at an industrial scale.” ​

 

[jawatkins]

Good as long as white hydrogen can be found, harvested, shipped and used without a lot of input from fossil fuel sources. I’m all for innovation but hydrogen fuel cells are more like a game of shifting stuff around rather than fixing issues at hand right now.


Most hydrogen used requires another fuel source to harvest it. Like Japan can say oh we’re carbon neutral with our hydrogen fuel cell cars while buying hydrogen that is not carbon neutral from Australia and other East Asian countries and having it shipped to them, they’re just putting the carbon output in other countries at this point.

 

[IACub]

God, I love the smell of burnt chicken feathers in the morning.

 

[Joes Place]

Most hydrogen used requires another fuel source to harvest it

U mean like wind or solar?
Where excess capacity can be turned into hydrogen?

 

[jawatkins]

U mean like wind or solar?
Where excess capacity can be turned into hydrogen?

If you have enough wind and solar to do it and I doubt the East Asian countries do. The best would be nuclear but most are using coal and creating a carbon negative that is higher than if they just used ICE and kept the same powerplants.

Find enough white hydrogen or let’s get some nuclear power plants built to power our cities and to harvest hydrogen.

 

[Joes Place]

Wonder if these guys' process could benefit from the chicken-feather keratin for their separation processes....

Engineers develop an efficient process to make fuel from carbon dioxide

An efficient new process can convert carbon dioxide into formate, a material that can be used like hydrogen or methanol to power a fuel cell and generate electricity.

news.mit.edu

Now, researchers at MIT and Harvard University have developed an efficient process that can convert carbon dioxide into formate, a liquid or solid material that can be used like hydrogen or methanol to power a fuel cell and generate electricity. Potassium or sodium formate, already produced at industrial scales and commonly used as a de-icer for roads and sidewalks, is nontoxic, nonflammable, easy to store and transport, and can remain stable in ordinary steel tanks to be used months, or even years, after its production.

The new process, developed by MIT doctoral students Zhen Zhang, Zhichu Ren, and Alexander H. Quinn; Harvard University doctoral student Dawei Xi; and MIT Professor Ju Li, is described this week in an open-access paper in Cell Reports Physical Science. The whole process — including capture and electrochemical conversion of the gas to a solid formate powder, which is then used in a fuel cell to produce electricity — was demonstrated at a small, laboratory scale. However, the researchers expect it to be scalable so that it could provide emissions-free heat and power to individual homes and even be used in industrial or grid-scale applications.