Chicken Feathers!!!!! You say? Superheated chicken feathers? ... to hold vast amounts of Hydrogen?

The Source who gave us the idea for the Nelson "Galvania"  Iron Fertilizer Post, says we should start counting our chickens, REAL chickens, because there's more money to be made out of using discarded Chicken Feathers than the BC Liberal Government's LNG plan of creating a Trillion Dollars worth of Royalties in Fifty years, and wiping out our provincial debt in Fifteen years.

The BC Liberals are after the Black Gold of Coal, Natural Gas, and Tar Sands.

We say"    Chicken Feathers!!!

Chicken feathers may help cars use hydrogen fuel in the future. The feathers would not be the fuel, but they could help store it, new research reveals.

Richard Wool, director of the Affordable Composites from Renewable Resources program at the University of Delaware in Newark has this to say:

.... Wool and his colleagues say that super heated chicken feather fibers could hold vast amounts of hydrogen. They first looked at chicken feathers because they are extraordinarily cheap — the United States alone generates some 6 billion pounds of the feathers per year.

"It actually costs the poultry industry money to get rid of these feathers, so they're basically for free," Wool told LiveScience.

Chicken feather fibers are mostly composed of keratin, the same protein found in nails, scales, claws and beaks. When carefully heated for precise times to specific temperatures, the carbon-rich surfaces that result on the fibers attract hydrogen, somewhat like how activated charcoal filters can pull out impurities from liquids or gases. The heating process can also form hollow tubes between the fibers, strengthening their structure, and make them become more porous, boosting their surface area and thus their capacity to store gas. One can then pump gas into the fibers and store it at high pressure, and to release the gas, one just depressurizes it or raises the temperature.

SNIP

Wool estimated that when using carbonized chicken feather fibers to store hydrogen, it would take a 75-gallon tank to go 300 miles in a car. His team is working to improve that range.

In addition to hydrogen storage, Wool and his colleagues are working on ways to transform chicken feather fibers into a number of other products, including hurricane-resistant roofing, lightweight car parts and bio-based computer circuit boards. Indeed, other researchers have suggested that chicken feathers could become common in clothing in the future.

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USE OF FEATHERS

H. Maxwell, ENGLAND

1933

Some feathers, no doubt, are dried and stuffed haphazardly into odd cushions and pillows and so prove not entirely unprofitable, but the majority seldom get farther than the rubbish bin or fire. Yet, properly treated, all kinds of feathers are as money-making, in proportion, as good laying hens.

Some idea of the earning possibilities of feathers can be gathered from the fact that from 1920 - 1925 nearly £600,000 was spent on importing them. To-day that figure is probably half as much again for a shorter period.

It is perhaps not generally realized the diversity of purposes for which feathers are used, and this may in part account for lack of consideration of their moneymaking possibilities. The millinery trade still demands large stocks, whilst the fancy-goods merchants use tremendous quantities of all kinds of feathers. Manufacturers of artists' brushes, fishing-tackle, pipe-cleaners, are among those who depend upon the poultry-farm for their raw material in the shape of feathers. In preparing feathers for selling, each class of poultry should be kept apart. Duck and geese feathers fetch the best prices. Fowls and turkeys come next. White feathers fetch more than coloured ones, and the best time for marketing is during the summer and early autumn. In spring and at Christmas prices are lower. SNIPPED, PLUCKED

Page 2,
 Closing paragraphs to "Use of Feathers":

Most women consider that quilts of any kind demand " down," and few would attempt to make such items from the more easily obtained coarser feathers. This is a pity, because quite good quilts can be made out of stripped body-feathers alone. An extremely simple method of making quilts is to do them in the form of small bags, afterwards covering them and sewing them together.

Cut some length of  "down" proof sateen or cambric 2 inches long and 6 inches wide, seam and fill with feathers, afterwards sewing them up cushionwise. The size is a matter of convenience and taste, but the above is suggested as it holds the feathers from one hen and is therefore a guide.  For a quilt suitable for baby cot or buggy, six such bags are necessary. The great advantage about such quilts is that they can be added to indefinitely with very little trouble or time. 

For making a full-sized quilt, forty-five bags would be necessary and 7 yards of material would be required.