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What’s next: Generating usable fuel from animal waste

Power Your Car

With the growing population, industrialization and consumption has taken a steep rise on the economy-graph of any modern day civilization or country in simple words. This leads to the accumulation of waste in huge quantum its disposal has become a major issue with all developing nations of the world. Many countries, in order to do away with their industrial wastes, have even started exporting them.

Converting garbage into energy using technology and potential, thereby recycling animal waste, is the best solution which results in optimum utilization of this waste for ultimate benefit of mankind. Scientists all over the world are trying to evolve new innovations and techniques in this field, in order to find out new resorts to overcome this serious issue.

Need for change

Physicists at the University of Arizona have come up with an innovative process of harvesting energy through heat. Heat is a great source of electric energy but till date we were not aware of how to extract this energy from heat wasted while using our gadgets and other electronic machines like computers, laptops etc. Even in several industries like glass or steel, a lot of heat is eliminated and wasted in the process of production of the same. A special technology called the Thermo photovoltaic TPV cells convert radiation from any heat source to energy. This enables energy lost in the form of friction or heat to be recycled and reused for optimum results.

With growing technology and industrialization, an awareness to save mother earth by conserving energy and recycling it for its optimum utilization seems to be an inevitable part of our progress. Waste recycling by reusing it in the form of energy is the need of the hour to convert our ecosystems into a better way of green living.

1. Chicken manure could some day power your car

As we all know that we are totally dependent on fossil fuels to run our cars and vehicles. Researchers have come up with unique solutions that can reduce our dependence on fuel generated from fossils by using a special mechanism of generating fuel from poultry waste that is chicken feathers. Mass consumption of poultry products lead to huge accumulation of poultry waste which in turn is used as low grade animal feed. However, scientists in Nevada have succeeded in extracting biodiesel fuel from chicken feather meal. Our cars can be powered by this recycled fuel.

Not only this, researchers are trying to use the natural process of photosynthesis to extract transportation fuels by recycling carbon dioxide using sun’s energy. If they become successful, our problem of fuel for cars and vehicles would be solved to a great extent. This way of converting trash into energy will not only avoid accumulation of waste but will also lead to an ecofriendly environment.

2. Giant biogas facility to power thousands of homes using cow dung

Giant biogas

Our planet is getting polluted day by day due to the dumping of wastes, leading to several diseases. Many densely populated nations are using less inhabited or rather uninhabited areas for dumping their waste but is this a solution to this grave problem. Research has suggested the conversion of animal dung into biogas which in turn can be used as a useful source of energy in households as well as industries. Giant biogas plants convert animal waste into economical source of efficient energy. Moreover, turning stray forms of energy such as noise or random variation from environment by producing electricity while undergoing mechanical stress can create spark which can be utilized to ignite gas. These plants would enable in lighting up thousands of homes with electricity derived by using cow dung as the main source of power.

Biomass

The most potential source of energy is what we derive from vegetation or other plant material. The most recently re-cycled waste has been that of waste vegetable oil used as an alternative fuel. Anerobic digestion of biomass by converting biodegradable fraction of waste into high calorific gases helps, to a large extent, in mitigating our problems of using our trash for a green life. Recovery of energy from wastes can make us reuse and recycle our garbage. In huge biomass plants, methane produced from the bio gas is used for electricity generation and industrial as well as domestic heating.

3. Cargill’s newest biogas plant to power 1100 homes with manure

Cargill

With the growing evil effects of global warming, scientists are putting in their heart and soul to excavate such sources of energy which reduce carbon dioxide in the air, replacing it by hydrogen. Hydrogen only eliminates water vapor in the air as waste, this is the reason why National Research Council of Canada Biotechnology Research Institute is keen on extracting hydrogen from organic waste materials like fermented feed-stock and manure. These materials are processed to produce hydrogen by the process of dark and photo fermentation, giving way to green energy which can be used for transportation and vehicles.

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