The Sceptical Chymist | MRS: Put some chicken feathers in your engine

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That is what Richard Wool suggested as apparently, when treated thermally near their melting temperature, the cheratin in the feathers develops tunnels around 7 Angstroms in size, which are very good for hydrogen storage. The material is not very efficient, but at least it is extremely low cost (3000kg waste feathers a year are produced in the US alone).

Wool presented also an interesting technology for prefab roofs. They would be made of recycled cardboard or other natural fibers and soybean oil resin, which is then cross linked by free radical polymerization, started by a cobalt based catalyst. Although this technology has been around for a few years (it was developed to make roofs able to withstand hurricanes) it has been recently picked up by the South African government which will deploy it on 2.2 million homes as an energy efficient substitute for steel and other materials currently used in housing there.

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