Skip to main content
ARS Home » Southeast Area » New Orleans, Louisiana » Southern Regional Research Center » Commodity Utilization Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #245043
Title: Converting Poultry Litter into Activated Carbon

Author
item Lima, Isabel

Submitted to: Popular Publication
Publication Type: Popular Publication
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/28/2003
Publication Date: 6/1/2003
Citation: Lima, I.M. 2003. Converting Poultry Litter into Activated Carbon. World of Poultry. 19(6):28-29.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Disposal of animal manure is one of the biggest problems facing agriculture today. Now new technology has been designed to covert manure into environmentally friendly and highly valued activated carbon. When pelletized and activated under specific conditions, the litter becomes a highly porous material. In early tests, these carbons performed very well in adsorbing copper, a metal of ubiquitous presence in the environment. With total large surface areas, these broiler manure-activated carbons picked up 150 mg per gram of carbon, that is, 15% of their weight in copper. The technology could provide farmers with an acceptable way to dispose of their waste, especially in environmentally sensitive areas with dense poultry populations.