Chicken feathers - recycled into circuit boards!

[tedster]

[wired.com...]

Richard Wool, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Delaware, wants to recycle discarded chicken feathers and use them to manufacture circuit boards, replacing petroleum-based components with keratin-based composites.... One of the most well-known technology companies, Intel, is contributing its expertise to the project, Wool said.

[mivox]

Wow. That's fantastic!

[lZakl]

Pretty darn clever, that professor... I dun woulda been skeptaple if it wasn't for Intel being in on it...

[monkeythumpa]

I don't see the point of recycling biodegradeable materials. Is that even recycling? Plastics and metals I can see, but feathers? Do we really have a problem with too many feathers on the planet?

[httpwebwitch]

so, you don't agree with recycling paper?

recycling saves manufactured material resources regardless of biodegradability

[Automan Empire]

Oh, you BET the world has too many chicken feathers! Using byproducts from a manufacturing stream is not the same thing as recycling. Now what to do with all the beaks and feet..?

In the auto repair world, we have a tool for removing hard carbon from an engine without damaging the soft aluminum. It shoots crumbled walnut shells, which are harder than the carbon but softer than the engine parts-pretty clever! I imagine once upon a time, some nut company wondering what good the mountains of shells could possibly be?

If phenolic plastic is bad, I can't wait to smell the burnt-hair smell of a chicken-board shorting out!

[mivox]

There's also the not inconsiderable benefit of reducing world dependence on petroleum products, if only in a small way. The world WILL run out of oil at some point... I don't forsee an unavoidable chicken feather shortage at any point in the near future. And anything they can do to make computer manufacturing processes less toxic (assuming the chicken-feather process is significantly less toxic) is a good thing.

[garyr_h]

Using feathers is a great idea. What do you think happens to all the feathers off the chickens that get killed for meat? There are probably hundreds of thousands of chickens killed everyday.. so why not use their feathers which are perfectly good for something like this.

As well, chickens and turkeys are now being used to create oil. As the natural oil starts depleting (more) using chickens and turkeys will be used more and more for this purpose, so more and more feathers will be available for... computers!

So as the times go on... more chickens get killed, plus more people are adding a 2nd, 3rd and 4th PC in their home... its a win-win situation! Except for the chickens :-(

[httpwebwitch]

I've developed a way to make cell phones out of earthworm meat.

I haven't yet made a *working* phone, but give me a few years, K?