Inside Iowa State
May 19, 2000
From cow chips to cow barns
by Teddi Barron
When Deland Myers looks at a cornfield, he sees plastics.
When he looks at a soybean field, he sees adhesives. And when
he looks at a cow, he sees animal processed fiber.
Myers looks at Iowa crops and sees new products that could
increase farmers' profitability. Converting animal processed
fiber (a k a manure) into something marketable is the latest
endeavor for the food scientist and his colleagues in the ISU
Biocomposites Research Group.
They've nearly perfected an adhesive made of soy protein and used it successfully in composite boards made from virgin and recycled wood, cornstalks, switchgrass and animal processed fiber.
"Our goal is to make 100 percent renewable, green composites from materials grown in the state of Iowa," Myers said. "The ultimate goal is to add value to what the farmers grow in this state."
The biocomposite research focus dates back to 1989. Shortly after Myers joined the faculty in the food science and human nutrition department, he began to explore the idea of creating non-food products from plant proteins for the Crops Utilization Research Center (CCUR), now a center of the Plant Sciences Institute.
The same functional properties of protein are applied to both food and non-food products, he said.
"For example, to make a meatball, you add cereal or crumbs to the meat and it doesn't hold together. What do you do? You add an egg. That's the protein that makes it 'sticky' and holds it together," Myers said.
"Many of those same functional properties that we're using in food can be used in non-food. We're just in a different system. We're reacting with different materials. It's going to be a different type of reaction, but we want many of the same properties," he explained.
Return to "chemurgy"
Although creating non-food products from crops was new to
Myers, it had been done before. In the 1920s and 1930s,
George Washington Carver, Henry Ford and his chemist Robert
Boyer, and others made plastics, textiles, paint and
adhesives from corn, wheat and soybeans.
Known as chemurgy, the science lost much of its "reason for being" after WWII when the petroleum industry redirected its attention from the war effort to commercial products. Petroleum-based products -- such as adhesives -- performed better than those derived from plants.
Myers set out to create a soy protein adhesive that could compete with the synthetic adhesives used in furniture, cabinets and building components.
Through chemical techniques, Myers modified the protein and was able to improve the soy adhesive's water resistance and strength. But it was too expensive to compete in the marketplace.
Eventually Myers came up with a protein adhesive that contains 70 percent soy flour and 30 percent phenoformaldehyde. It doesn't emit formaldehyde fumes and it resists water better than adhesives made with urea formaldehyde.
"Now we have an adhesive that we believe can compete in some interior applications," Myers said. "We've scaled it up and manufactured fiberboard products inside a production plant with the adhesive. While there are some modifications to make -- as there always are -- we believe that it's ready for technology transfer, and we're working with a company that is interested."
Team effort
Myers credits Monlin Kuo, associate professor of
forestry, with moving his research to the next level. As the
soy adhesive was being developed, the two began looking at
sources of fiber other than wood that could be used with the
adhesive to create composite boards.
Their partnership grew into the ISU Biocomposites Research Group, and also includes Howard Heemstra, architecture; Douglas Stokke, forestry; Dan Curry, Seed Science Center; Carey Novak, Center for Advanced Technology Development; and Karen Andersen Schenck, Iowa Soybean Promotion Association (which funds the research).
"We're trying to utilize the fiber as well as the soy protein to create additional value to what the farmers grow in Iowa. It's not only the adhesive, it's the fiber," Myers said.
"We have composites made with our soy adhesive and 50 percent cornstalk or switchgrass and 50 percent wood," he said. Boards of varying densities have been produced in CCUR's technology transfer pilot plant.
Cow chip Frisbee
Now the researchers are fine-tuning their newest creation, manure board. To them, manure isn't just manure. It's a source of fiber, no different than cornstalk or switchgrass.
"Cows eat grass, a relatively fibrous material," Myers said. "The cow has already broken down the fiber, similar to what our refiner or grinder does to grind up stalks."
Last summer, the Iowa Soybean Board asked the researchers to make something from the manure board that could be used as a promotional item at county fairs.
"We made up hardboard, which is used typically for hollow core doors, and cut it into circles," Myers said. "And they used it for Frisbees. They'd enter it in cow chip throwing contests at county fairs! It is cow manure, after all.
"It's been kind of a unique novelty around here, but we'd like to see it go further than that," Myers said.
"I don't know if you'll ever see a 100 percent manure board," he said. "But in my opinion, animal processed fiber could be used as a supplement to other fiber that is going into a fiberboard."
Jack Dickens from J. Anthony and Associates, a California consulting firm, requested a sample of the manure board. He later sent Kuo photos showing he had hammered nails and put screws into the manure board. He phoned Kuo and said, "You guys weren't kidding! You're actually making a building material!"
Now he has become an advocate. "He's been traveling around the country to try to get funding to help us get this thing going," Myers said.
"I get calls from people everywhere asking if I've ever tried using soy protein for this purpose or that purpose," he said. "I hear some far-reaching ideas. The same far-reaching ideas that the George Washington Carvers and the Robert Boyers had years ago are alive and well today."
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