Carbonized Chicken Feathers Store Hydrogen

Hydrogen is, at this point, the leading source of alternative fuel in the world. Its potential to power up the cars and vehicles of tomorrow is only limited by the fact that there are currently no materials able to hold vast amounts of hydrogen. This is necessary for giving the vehicles a range similar to that they have by using gasoline and diesel fuels. Tanks for hydrogen at high pressure weigh a lot, and making one out of carbon nanotubes would generate expenses of millions of dollars per car. Now, researchers believe they may have found the answer to all the problems, in the form of chicken feathers.

Right now, carbon nanotubes are the best option when it comes to storing hydrogen. Their hollow internal structure allows the fuel to be trapped inside, which means that relatively high amounts of hydrogen could be stored in a small nanotube volume. However, the material is prohibitively expensive to produce, and a large tank would cost millions. The dilemma on where to turn to next has been going on for quite some time now, but the new suggestion, coming from the most unlikely of all places, may turn out to be the answer everyone was waiting for.

Bird feathers, especially those from the poultry industry, are made almost entirely out of keratin, which is the same substance that makes up nails and beaks. This allows them to be made up of hollow tubes on the inside as well, whose potential for storing hydrogen is currently being investigated. If the storage method turns out to work as well as predicted, and if the automobile industry goes for it, then the world could see the 2.7 billion kilograms of poultry feathers disposed of by the commercial food industry each year put to good use and recycled.

Chemical Engineer Richard Wool, from the University of Delaware in Newark, said that he and his team were investigating the feathers' properties in the lab, attempting to find a use for them in improving electronic microcircuits. They realized that, by carbonizing the feathers, they would get inner tubes about as strong as carbon nanotubes, which would be able to hold about 1.7 percent more than their weight in hydrogen. The find was presented at the 13th Annual Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference in College Park, Maryland.

The researcher hypothesized that, in the case of mass-producing carbonized feather hydrogen fuel tanks, their prices would not exceed $200, which is considerably less that the millions spent on their carbon nanotubes counterparts. The main obstacle now is the US Department of Energy, which announced it would only support materials that could hold up to six percent their weight in hydrogen. But Wool pinpointed that the feathers were still promising, as “there are all kinds of next steps” to be taken, ScienceNow informs.