Media News
- Stinky Animal Gas Clings to Dust (www.dsc.discovery.com)
- Put a Little Oink in the Tank? (www.chicagotribune.com, www.sun-sentinel.com, cw33.trb.com, news.tradingcharts.com, www.thepigsite.com)
- Pig Manure May Be Converted to Crude Oil (www.politicalgateway.com, www.upi.com, washingtontimes.com, www.thepigsite.com)
- Black Gold? (www.foxnews.com)
- How a Pig's Waste Became Oil? (www.nytimes.com)
- Researchers turn manure into crude oil (www.msnbc.msn.com)
- Turning Manure into Black Gold (www.businessweek.com)
- Pig manure can become crude oil (www.boston.com, www.nctimes.com)
- Pig Manure Converted to Crude Oil (news.nationalgeographic.com)
- Converting Manure to Oil (nationalhogfarmer.com)
- Pig manure can become crude oil(www.chinadaily.com.cn)
- Producing Oil From Manure (www.associatedcontent.com)
- Can the Other White Meat's Manure Make Black Gold? (www.wistech.org, www.poe-news.com, www.khou.com, pantagraph.com)
- Convering Manure to Oil (www.aces.uiuc.edu, www.engr.uiuc.edu, web.extension.uiuc.edu, www.aocs.org)
- Reactor Converts Pig Manure to Oil (www.dailyillini.com)
- U of I Researchers Convert Swine Manure into Oil (farmweek.ilfb.org)
- Research shows swine manure can become crude (www.signonsandiego.com, www.billingsgazette.com, www.casperstartribune.net)
- Pig-poo Petroleum (www.abetterearth.org)
- Turning manure into oil (farmindustrynews.com)
- New project to make feces into crude oil (www.bupipedream.com)
- Researchers Turn Hog Manure Into Oil (www.nppc.org)
Stinky Animal Gas Clings to Dust
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery NewsFeb. 29, 2008 -- Like flatulence that never dissipates, gaseous ammonia and other odorous gases resulting from animal manure can attach to dust particles, leaving behind matter that is both unpleasant and unhealthy for humans, according to new research that evaluated the levels of dust stink.
The study, which will be published in next month's Biosystems Engineering journal, is among the first to quantify dust gas emissions. Dust from structures housing cattle, laying hens and pigs was studied, with the dust particles produced mainly from feed, manure, bedding, soil and the animals' dry skin. Full Story
Put a Little Oink in the Tank
U. of I. researchers learn to extract crude oil from pig manureBy Miriah Meyer
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 13, 2006
URBANA -- Yuanhui Zhang has smelled the future of oil, and it stinks.
The pungent, earthy scent emanates from swine pens that professor Zhang's graduate students visit regularly at the University of Illinois. Holding spades in gloved hands, they collect buckets of moist pig poop and carefully drive it to a lab on the edge of campus. Inside a white metal building nestled among corn and soybean fields, the students pressure-cook the messy muck until it becomes thick, black, energy-dense crude oil remarkably similar to the stuff pumped from deep within the earth.
As oil and gas prices continue their steep climb, the dedicated crew of engineering researchers at the U. of I. is refining an economical process to transform smelly hog droppings into piggy petroleum that can be refined into industrial fuel.
Although experts say the oily end product is not likely to make a big dent in the U.S. energy shortage, the process may help relieve the odor and pollution problems that plague high-density animal farming by providing a use for porcine poop produced in vast quantities.
It's a promising technology, if sloppy and unpleasant at times. Full Story
Pig Manure May Be Converted to Crude Oil
URBANA, Ill., Aug. 13 (UPI) -- A University of Illinois in Urbana professor and her graduate students are investigating a unique solution to soaring oil prices -- pig manure.Professor Yuanhui Zhang has spearheaded a project in which her students visit swine pens at nearby farms, collect pig excrement, and then drive it to a lab on the edge of the campus. There, the manure is pressure-cooked until it becomes a thick, black, energy-rich muck remarkably similar to crude oil, the Chicago Tribune reported.
As fuel prices climb, Zhang and her students are hoping to transform their pig droppings into petroleum that can be refined into industrial fuel.
"What's fascinating is that it's a relatively simple process," said Ted Funk, a researcher in Zhang's group. "Even though the process has complex chemistry, it's relatively short, requires almost no extra materials, and you get a nice energy output."
Zhang said the technique, called thermochemical conversion, was something she conceived of 10 years ago, when she began combating the growing manure problems on dense hog farms.
Copyright Political Gateway 2006©
Copyright United Press International 2006
How a Pig's Waste Became Oil?
OBSERVATORY; How a Pig's Waste Became OilYou've heard of Big Oil. How about Pig Oil?
The process is far from perfected, but an agricultural engineer at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign has reported success in turning hog manure into oil.
''Scientifically, yes, we did convert manure to oil,'' said Dr. Yuanhui Zhang, a professor in the department of agricultural and biological engineering. ''But to compete with Mobil and Amoco, we still have a long way to go.''
Dr. Zhang, who has been researching manure conversion for eight years, subjects a waste slurry to heat and pressure in a process called thermochemical conversion. Long hydrocarbon chains break down into shorter ones, and along with some methane, carbon dioxide and water, oil is produced, ''though it's not as good quality as the sweet crude we buy, yet,'' he said.
He has finished a batch process, converting about half a gallon at a time. He said it had a good energy return: ''for every one portion of energy in, you get three portions of energy out.''
The next step is to develop a continuous process, then build a prototype conversion plant. Dr. Zhang envisions a future where every hog farm has one or more converters, about the size of a home furnace, producing oil that is trucked or piped to a central facility for further refining. Full Story
Researchers turn manure into crude oil
Researchers turn manure into crude oilWaste could become fuel if process can be perfected
By Jim Paul
Updated: 5:07 p.m. CT April 13, 2004
URBANA, Ill. - A University of Illinois research team is working on turning pig manure into a form of crude oil that could be refined to heat homes or generate electricity.
Years of research and fine-tuning are ahead before the idea could be commercially viable, but results so far indicate there might be big benefits for farmers and consumers, lead researcher Yanhui Zhang said.
“This is making more sense in terms of alternative energy or renewable energy and strategically for reducing our dependency on foreign oil,” said Zhang, an associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering. “Definitely, there is potential in the long term.” Full Story
Turning Manure into Black Gold
OCTOBER 8, 2004SPECIAL REPORT: ALTERNATIVE ENERGY POWERS UP
Turning Manure into Black Gold
As oil prices soar, innovative ways of converting livestock waste to fuel, though still in their infancy, could be the new alchemy.
Albert Straus's basic philosophy has always been that when life serves you a load of manure, you turn it into something good. Like, well, electricity. At his Straus Organic Dairy Farm in Marshall, Calif., 270 milk cows slowly munching on fresh grass produce about 120 pounds of muck a day. Strauss uses some of it to fertilize his fields. Still, plenty more remains, and its disposal has been expensive and problematic -- until recently, when Strauss began converting the stuff into energy.
Witness work by Yuanhui Zhang, a professor of bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who has successfully generated fuel from pig manure. Zhang mixes the fecal matter with water and places it into a specially designed reactor, where it's heated to 550 degrees Fahrenheit and kept under high pressure. Most of the manure breaks down into a goo remarkably similar to crude oil, with a comparable level of British thermal units (Btu) when burned. The rest turns to ash and leaves no animal odor. Full Story
Pig manure can become crude oil
Research: Pig manure can become crude oilBy Jim Paul, Associated Press Writer, 4/13/2004
URBANA, Ill. -- A University of Illinois research team is working on turning pig manure into a form of crude oil that could be refined to heat homes or generate electricity.
Years of research and fine-tuning are ahead before the idea could be commercially viable, but results so far indicate there might be big benefits for farmers and consumers, lead researcher Yanhui Zhang said.
"This is making more sense in terms of alternative energy or renewable energy and strategically for reducing our dependency on foreign oil," said Zhang, an associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering. "Definitely, there is potential in the long term."
The thermochemical conversion process uses intense heat and pressure to break down the molecular structure of manure into oil. It's much like the natural process that turns organic matter into oil over centuries, but in the laboratory the process can take as little as a half-hour. Full Story
Pig Manure Converted to Crude Oil
Pig Manure Converted to Crude OilStefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News
July 2, 2004
Crude oil and gasoline prices are near an all-time high. But don't despair. One scientist has found an alternative source of energy: pig manure.
Yuanhui Zhang, an agricultural engineering professor at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, has succeeded in turning small batches of hog waste into oil.
The process, called thermochemical conversion, uses heat and pressure to break down carbohydrate materials and turn waste into liquid. The project is still in its infancy.
For now, each half-gallon (two-liter) batch of manure converts to only about 9 ounces (0.26 liter) of oil.
But Zhang believes the conversion process could eventually solve the problem of pollution and odor at modern hog farms, where farmers pay big money to get rid of the waste. And, he says, pig oil could also offer an alternative to petroleum oil. Full Story
Converting Manure to Oil
Converting Manure to OilApr 15, 2004 12:00 PM
by Joe Vansickle, Senior Editor (952) 851-4670; jvansickle@primediabusiness.com
A University of Illinois (U of I) research project that converts swine manure to crude oil could be a surprising key to reduced crude oil imports and could possibly create a new industry in the U.S.
U of I agricultural engineer Yuanhui Zwang has refined a thermochemical conversion (TCC) process to make it more efficient and faster.
“If 50% of swine farms adopted this technology, we could see a $1.5 billion reduction in crude oil imports every year,” he projects. “And swine producers could see a 10% increase in their income, about $10-15 per hog.”
Other pluses are that minerals are preserved in the after-treatment stream, odor is reduced and the oxygen demand of manure is reduced by 70%.
Using a batch reactor, researchers achieved an average of 70% conversion from swine manure volatile solids to oil. At that conversion rate, the manure excreted by one hog during the production cycle could produce up to 21 gal. of crude oil. A farm raising 10,000 market hogs/year could produce 5,000 barrels of crude oil/year.
Zhang is further refining the conversion process and hopes to develop a pilot plant to analyze the oil properties and seek alternative applications of the TCC oil.
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