DOE-Funds Study To Increase Value Of Manure
RICHLAND, Washington It
is hard to think of animal ma
nure as a valuable commodity.
But with 160 million tons of it
produced annually in the U.S.,
and most of it rich in carbohy
drates and proteins, researchers
at the Department of Energy’s
Pacific Northwest National Labo
ratory (PNNL) and Washington
State University (WSU) see po
tential in converting substantial
portions of it to commodity
chemicals and other high-value
products.
PNNL and WSU are beginning
a two-year study to determine the
best processes to generate higher
value products from manure. The
study is being funded by an
$BOO,OOO grant through DOE’s
Office of Energy Efficiency and
New York Farm Bureau Urges
Lawmakers To Restrict Dairy Imports
GLENMONT, N.Y. New
York Farm Bureau President
John Lincoln is urging New
York’s congressional delegation
to help stem the tide of foreign
subsidized and “fuzzily labeled”
dairy products.
At issue is a new technology
producing a new product milk
protein concentrates (MFCs) that
are unregulated by trade treaty.
The mislabeling of product
blends by exporters as simply
MFCs is an additional concern.
American companies import
these foreign-subsidized proteins
to make pizza cheese, desserts,
weight-loss drinks, and “power
bars,” displacing American milk
in the process.
There has long been a quota on
importation of non-fat dry milk
powder to keep foreign countries
from dumping excess and subsi
dized milk on the U.S. market.
“Over the past six years, foreign
exporters have cleverly found a
new way to circumvent the exist
ing rules,” said Lincoln, a dairy
farmer from Bloomfield, N.Y.
“They found they could get
around the rules by blending the
Renewable Energy and is focused
on developing new processes to
use animal manure as feedstock
for commodity chemical produc
tion.
The team will use the carbohy
drate- and protein-based chemi
cal building blocks from manure
to produce a range of products.
The carbohydrate material, com
posed of five- and six-carbon sug
ars, will be converted to commod
ity chemicals, such as glycols or
diols, commonly used to manu
facture antifreeze or certain plas
tics. The protein components will
be converted to animal feed and
other higher-value products.
PNNL has developed innova
tive catalytic approaches for con
verting other low-value biobased
materials to chemicals, such as
powder with MFCs and casein
(another milk protein) and still
call it milk protein concentrate.”
There is no import quota on ei
ther casein or milk protein con
centrates.
New York congressional repre
sentatives John McHugh and
Maurice Hinchey have intro
duced legislation in the House of
Representatives to address this
unfair trading practice for New
York’s dairy farm families. It
would create two new tariff-rate
quotas one for milk protein
concentrates and one for casein.
The legislation also has a com
panion bill in the U.S. Senate.
Blending the restricted non-fat
dry milk powder with these unre
stricted protein imports lets man
ufacturers use less domestically
produced powder, which hurts
the long term outlook for U.S.
dairy farm prices, said Lincoln.
Legislation introduced by rep
resentatives McHugh and Hin
chey House of Representatives
bill 1786 and Senate bill 847 is
particularly important in light of
the Department of Agriculture’s
recent decision to realign the al
ready low support price for non
the wastes and by-products re
sulting from processing com,
wheat, potatoes and dairy prod
ucts. Researchers at PNNL sepa
rate the carbohydrates and oils
from low-value feedstocks. The
carbohydrate fraction then is cat
alytically converted to higher
value products. This approach
will be applied to manure, de
scribed as a messier resource by
Don Stevens, project manager for
the PNNL work.
“While some biomass feed
stocks, such as wheat wastes, are
made up mostly of clean carbo
hydrates, manure is messier with
only about half of it consisting of
carbohydrates. Additionally, ma
nure contains a much higher pro
tein percentage and a greater mix
of minerals,” said Stevens. “The
fat dry milk powder, said Lin
coln. “Since the support price for
non-fat dry milk powder has
been cut by 10 cents, it is crucial
to dairy-farmer prices that we
eliminate unfair competition
from foreign countries.”
Lincoln urges dairy farmers to
contact their congressional repre
sentatives to express their sup
port of this important legislation.
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production of chemicals is
therefore more complex and the
processes must include more ex
tensive separations of these com
ponents to be useful for chemical
production.”
PNNL is teaming with WSU
researchers because of their ex
tensive experience in separations
chemistry and in recovery of
high-value protein products.
WSU is a land grant university
and operates a dairy and feedlot
in Pullman, Wash.
The payoff could be huge
environmentally and economi
cally. “Animal waste is increas
ingly difficult to dispose of. With
fewer, but larger, animal opera
tions across the U.S., the waste is
more geographically concentrat
ed, resulting in more environ
mental problems,” Stevens said.
“By successfully converting the
wastes into chemicals, we can
greatly reduce the need for open
field disposal of manure, which
will reduce odor problems, meth
ane emission to the atmosphere
and run-off of contaminants into
streams and lakes.”
Another payoff is reducing the
number of petroleum-based prod
ucts on the mar-
ket. Currently, al-
most all the
medium-volume
commodity
chemicals, such
as those used to
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make antifreeze, carpet fibers
and soda pop bottles, are petro
leum-derived. Stevens' said it’s
conceivable that in a few years
biobased products could directly
replace some chemicals currently
made from petroleum resources.
They also could be cheaper to
produce. Stevens said the kinds
of chemicals the team is focusing
on are potentially more efficient
to produce from biomass feed
stocks than petroleum, and that
the total energy required for their
production is roughly Half when
compared to the same chemical
from petroleum.
Business inquiries on this or
other PNNL technologies should
be directed to 1-888-375-PNNL
or e-mail: inquiry@pnl.gov.
Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory is a DOE research fa
cility and delivers breakthrough
science and technology in the
areas of environment, energy,
health, fundamental science and
national security. Battelle, based
in Columbus, Ohio, has operated
the laboratory for DOE since
1965.
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