UGA Engineers Turn Chicken Fat into Fuel

Athens, GA -- That pack of skinless, boneless chicken breasts at the grocery store came from fully feathered birds. The fat that used to be on those birds isn’t appetizing to sell, but it’s a valuable commodity, too, say University of Georgia researchers.

In 2006, 1.3 billion chickens were slaughtered in Georgia, generating 9 billion gallons of highly concentrated fat, oil and grease wastewater. Instead of selling the chicken fat filtered from the wastewater to rendering plants for 3 cents per pound, the poultry industry could use it as an alternative to petroleum fuel and save $9 million a year.

Feathers, fat, oil, grease and other byproducts are all left over after a chicken has been processed. UGA engineers have discovered that the fat is an excellent fuel. After it has been refined at the processor, it can be used to fire boilers to heat water.

“A poultry processor could be washing and cleaning both birds and equipment with water heated by boilers, fed waste fat recovered from birds processed earlier that same day,” said Brian Kiepper, an engineer with UGA’s Engineering Outreach Service.

With the help of several poultry processors, Kiepper and other engineers and poultry scientists with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences developed a small self-contained, low-temperature fat extraction and purification unit that produces six gallons of fat fuel at a time.

The next step is a full-scale version that the processing plants can use to economically produce a fuel that “looks like corn oil,” Kiepper said.  Processors pay about $2 per gallon for petroleum fuel.

“Along with providing reduced fueling costs, this work could increase domestic energy security by displacing foreign petroleum with domestic poultry fat,” he said. “It takes advantage of Georgia’s own energy resources and, since this material is used in-house, it eliminates transportation costs.”

The project was born years ago when UGA engineers started working with the poultry industry to help processors bring their wastewater streams up to environmental regulatory standards.

“It starts with us going in and solving environmental problems, and it ends with applied research,” Kiepper said. “The waste stream is a direct reflection on how efficient a poultry processor is.”

From there, they started isolating byproducts. “What was first seen as a waste is now a product,” Kiepper said. “The whole purpose of outreach is to open our client’s eyes to the concept that all of these waste streams can become profitable revenue generators.”

Source: http://www.uga.edu/

AWWA Elects Craig Woolard President-Elect

Denver, CO -- The Board of Directors of the American Water Works Association (AWWA), the authoritative resource on safe water, today announced its next president-elect will be Craig Woolard, treatment division director of the Anchorage (Alaska) Water and Wastewater Utility. Woolard will assume his new position at AWWA’s Annual Conference & Exposition (ACE08) in Atlanta, Georgia in June 2008.

An AWWA member since 1995, Woolard is an AWWA vice-president and member of the board of directors and has served on the Credentialing, Camp Scholarship, Publications Award, Young Professionals, and Strategic Planning committees and was the liaison officer to the Administration and Policy Council. He also has served as section chair and chair of the annual conference and the research and development committees for the Alaska Section. In 1997, he was named Section Volunteer of the Year, and he received the AWWA Fuller Award in 2003.

Woolard has undertaken a variety of roles in the water industry. He has worked as a consultant, civil engineering professor and department chair, and associate dean of research and graduate studies for the University of Alaska Anchorage engineering program before joining the Anchorage utility. He earned a BS in civil engineering from Montana State University and a PhD from the University of Notre Dame. Woolard did postdoctoral research at the Institute for Water Quality and Waste Management at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. He has also completed the University of North Carolina’s Water and Wastewater Leadership Center program.

The AWWA Board of Directors also elected four new vice-presidents:
• Dee Bennett, an engineering operations manager for the city of Columbia, S.C.,
• Dean Fritzke, a water quality coordinator for the Tualatin Water District in Beaverton, OR,
• Juan Carlos Perez Bofill, compliance director for the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority, and
• Jeff Zdrojewski, a senior associate with Malcolm Pirnie in New York.

Additionally, the board elected two new directors-at-large. Dan Duchniak is general manager of the Waukesha (WI) Water Utility, and Joel Neulight is the northeast regional sales manager for Severn Trent Services. The vice presidents and directors also will take office at ACE08 in Atlanta.

Source: http://www.awwa.org/

EMERYVILLE, CA -- New Logic Research, the maker of VSEP, the vibratory membrane separation system, announced the successful installation of its first European VSEP separation system to treat anaerobically digested hog manure. The system was installed and commissioned in Belgium at a major hog farm. Six similar systems are presently on order for farms across Europe.

To enhance the European market entry of its patented VSEP membrane separation system, New Logic has joined forces with Eco Flanders of Belgium. Eco Flanders will market and distribute VSEP in Europe for the application of bio-methanation of raw manure. VSEP is used as the water treatment step in a comprehensive process developed by Eco Flanders where methane is recovered and converted to electrical energy.

Much attention has recently been paid to the environmental impact of livestock production. As a powerful greenhouse gas, some scientists have linked methane from livestock production to global warming. Untreated manure stored in large lagoons also represents a significant threat to the environment if it leaches into ground water or spills into waterways.

"Taking this waste product from an environmental liability and converting it to valuable byproducts that can be sold or reused makes good business sense," says New Logic's Chief Executive Officer, Greg Johnson. "By using a bio-methanation process that includes the VSEP separation process, the hog and dairy farmer can harvest and sell electrical energy and concentrated organic fertilizer while gaining clean water for reuse in their operations." If not needed, the water can be safely discharged.

"Analysis of the filtered water shows that VSEP's RO membrane separation process can exceed the stringent Flemish regulations for surface water discharge," says Eco Flanders' Chief Executive Officer, Jos Santy.

Mr. Johnson and Ms. Melysa Reiss, New Logic's International Sales Engineering Manager, will be traveling to Europe to tour the new VSEP manure installation and to meet with other hog farmers currently considering the installation of their own separation and bio-methanation system. On the heels of this and other successful European VSEP installations, New Logic will soon be opening a European branch office to provide local sales and engineering support.

Web site: http://www.vsep.com/

. Large-Diameter SWRO Plant Saves Money CH2M HILL launched PowerSeraya Ltd.’s new Seawater Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) Desalination plant.

Work resumes at Iraqi Water Treatment Plant
The US Army Corps of Engineers has resumed work on a water treatment project in Basrah Province now that security has improved.
 

Ecolab to Acquire Ecovation, Inc. Fast-growing Ecovation delivers lower plant operating costs and environmental sustainability solutions

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