Three young innovators were recently recognised in The Shell LiveWIRE Smarter Future awards.
We thought these were interesting ideas and hope you think the same. Here is the second of these innovators.
This one is not so obviously “food waste”, but “feather waste”. The poultry industry produces 2,000 tonnes of feather waste a week, but AeroPowder is creating a cheaper and more environmentally-friendly insulation for homes, made-up almost entirely of these feathers.
“Chicken feathers are a waste by-product from the UK poultry industry. They are conventionally rendered into feather meal which has a limited application scope in Europe, so we try and re-purpose them for other means” explained design engineering student and one of the three co-founders of AeroPowder, Elena Dieckmann. “We are exploring a range of different product applications, such as bio-plastic, adhesives and composites, and we’re looking for collaboration partners to push R&D to the next level”
According to the Energy Saving Trust, an uninsulated home experiences 66 percent heat loss through solid walls. AeroPowder’s product, FeatherFill, is a sustainable alternative to polyurethane foam in boards that are commonly used for home insulation. According to Elena, FeatherFill not only has similar heat-retention qualities to current insulation materials, but the cost is 14 times lower.
