From poultry industry waste to biodiesel

Scientists devised a method that would yield approximately 593 million gallons of biodiesel worldwide (150−200 million gallons in the U.S.) from the billions of pounds of poultry industry waste that accumulates annually.

After chicken is butchered, its leftover feathers, blood and innards are processed and reused as a high-protein animal feed or as a fertilizer because of its high nitrogen content. The waste can contain, however, up to 12 per cent fat. Scientists from the University of Nevada isolated the animal fat and successfully created biodiesel comparable to biodiesel made from other feedstocks. Their novel and environmentally friendly process is described in the article “A Green Process for Producing Biodiesel from Feather Meal,” in the current issue of Journal for Agricultural and Food Chemistry.