The Chicken and the Nanotube: Parables of Creative Waste Management

What does a chicken have in common with a nanotube? As it turns out they may both hold promise for solving one of the biggest obstacles standing in the way of the widespread use of hydrogen fuel cells. While engineers and sustainability buffs alike have great optimism for autos powered by hydrogen, which would not only slash auto emissions but would yield double the efficiency of combustion engines*, the stable storage of hydrogen is a tricky matter due to its explosivity. So far carbon nanotubes have been a front runner in the materials research that seeks to solve this storage problem, but recently some plucky researchers at the University of Delaware have discovered that a few extra crispy chicken feathers might be just the ticket to an affordable fuel cell.

An American team lead by Richard Wool have shown that carbonized chicken feathers, while still not quite up to the US Department of Energy’s rigorous 2010 and 2015 hydrogen storage targets, perform essentially as well as carbon nanotubes, and have the added bonus of being made from an abundant waste product of Wool’s home state: chicken fluff. While nanotubes may sound sexy— conjuring images of sealed research chambers and Nobel Prize laureates dressed in gleaming white haz-mat suits—they are also diabolically expensive, and potentially toxic. Despite the hurdles left to overcome in finding vehicles that will not add to the problem of climate change, the notion of using waste material to solve high-tech problems is to be commended, and this got me to thinking: while we often gravitate to high-tech, top-shelf, slick multi-million dollar science, sometimes the best solutions come from creatively rethinking a problem from the ground up. Wool’s research has the virtue of killing two birds with one stone, if you'll forgive the pun. Waste is transformed into a valuable product and an elegant solution.

While we all know that we should recycle and curb our consumption, what if some of our waste is a goldmine of future scientific breakthroughs? Furthermore, this creative rethinking does not have to be restricted to the bonafides of University research labs; perhaps we could all take another look at our rubbish bins and see a solution. So let us know: what clever things do you do with your trash?

Sources:
*Jesse L. C. Rowsell and Omar M. Yaghi, Angew. Chem. Int. 2005,44, 4670-4679
Image: Fuzzy Gerdes - Flickr