Each process in the food and agriculture industry has an impact on the environment and there is much concern about environmental pollution.

Branches of industry produce wastes of different quality and quantity, which, if not treated, could lead to increasing disposal problems and severe pollution.

Agricultural and food industry systems generate by-products, wastes and air emissions with possible impact on the environment

[1]. Waste resources include wood and wood wastes, agricultural crops and their waste by products,municipal solid wastes (MSW), animal wastes,wastes from food processing, aquatic plants and algae.

 [2]. Utilization of various organic wastes in agriculture (e.g. as a fertilizers) depends on several factors, including the characteristics of the waste such as nutrient and heavy metal content, energetic value, odor generated by the waste, availability and transportation costs, benefits to agriculture, and regulatory considerations.

[3]. Application of wood ashes, feather, bones and litter in agriculture (e.g. fertilizers production) is a way to recycle nutrients and to limit consumption of non-renewable resources[1-10].

Large livestock and poultry farms produce considerable quantities of wastes – renewable sources of nutrients.

A part of the wastes is directly applied into the soil, producing leachates witch contaminate ground waters. Using the waste as a raw material for biofertilizers would be a sustainable alternative.[11]

Recently, a number of States in the USA and several countries in Europe are considering the collection, processing, and re-use of waste in order to increase the amount of materials recycled and to reduce the amount of organic matter reaching final disposal sites.

The main goal is to make the “waste” a renewable resource that can be utilized and not discarded.

In the literature it is reported that organic wastes could be re-used (1) as fertilizers and soil amendments, (2) in the processes of energy recovery (heat, liquid fuels, electricity)[2-4], and (3) in the production of chemicals (volatile organic acids, ammonium products, alcohols)[2].

The conversion technologies for utilizing wastes could be classified into four categories: direct combustion, thermochemical processes, biochemicalprocesses and agrochemical processes [2]. The first method - direct combustion is the easiest and the mostly popular. Ashes – the waste product from combustion are proposed to be used as fertilizers[6,7,12-14].

 MATERIALS AND METHODS
Studied material: Poultry feather, animal bones and wood for the combustion originated from Lower Silesia region in south-west Poland (high capacity of metallurgy industry – copper industry). Sulfuric acid used for mineralization of slaughter wastes was from POCH S.A. Gliwice.

Analytical methods: The basic components of NPK fertilizer: P2O5, K2O and micronutrients, and N were determined by colorimetric analysis, ICP-AES method and Kjeldahl method, respectively.

Mercury was analyzed with Mercury analyzer AMA 254 atomic absorption spectrometry. The samples were mineralized with concentrated mineral acids of supra pure grade (from Merck) according to the procedure described previously[6] in a microwave oven (type Milestone MLS-1200 MEGA ).

The solution after cooling was filtered trough medium paper filter and diluted with demineralized water to the volume 75 ml. The solution was analyzed in three repeats by ICP-OES and ICPMS[6] to determine the concentration of metal ions (Al,As, B, Ca, Cd, K, Mg, Na, Pb, Zn). For the preparation of standard solution (1.0, 10, 100 mg.l-1) the multielemental standard was used (UltraScientific 0.05-1.0 mg.l-1).

Mercury was analyzed with Mercury analyzer AMA 254 atomic absorption spectrometry (Czech Republic ). Sulphur was determined by ICPOES [6].

Determination of total nitrogen: The total nitrogen content was determined by the Kjeldahl method[24]. The method consists of three basic steps: 1) digestion of the sample (0.2 g of solution after digestion of feathers) in 20 ml sulfuric acid (95 %) with a catalyst (K2SO4 and CuSO4 in the ratio 20:1), which resulted in conversion of nitrogen to ammo nia;

2) distillation - after addition of the base(NaOH), the ammonia was distilled from an alkaline medium and absorbed in boric acid and 3) determination of ammonia by titration with a standard solution (0.1 mol.l-1) HCl. For the determination of nitrogen, digestion apparatus (Büchi Digestion Unit K-424) and distillation apparatus (Büchi Distillation Unit B-324) were used.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
New standards of organization of wastes disposal and management in developed countries enforce on industry, in particular agricultural food industry with the particular consideration of slaughterhouses and implementation of new technological solutions which will enable wastes utilization with recovery of fertilizer nutrients.

This idea enables not only to avoid problems with wastes but simultaneously gives the possibility to save money on import of expensive fertilizer raw materials (natural gas, phosphate raw materials,potassium salts). In this paper, we propose a special solution of using the properties of sulfuric acid for the digestion of poultry feather and cattle, swine and poultry bones.

Taking into account the content of nitrogen in keratin substances (feather), phosphorus (bones) and wood ash (potassium, calcium, magnesium), we have the possibility of composing various complex fertilizers dedicated for special fertilization purposes – potatoes,sugar beets, maize crops and special vegetables according to agricultural recommendations.

The content of micronutrients, micronutrienta and undesirable elements in various renewable resources was analyzed.

The average results of measurements of N=6 samples are presented in Table 1, 2 and 3, that show the content of the main fertilizer nutrients, micronutrients and other elements, in particular, four elements (Pb, As, Hg and Cd) the content of which is limited by fertilizer recommendations is presented.

The samples originated from the region of Lower Silesia in which non-ferrous metallurgical industry is concentrated.

As an example of preparation of mineral-organic fertilizer produced by the utilization of the renewable sources, the new fertilizer technology solution is presented for obtaining the suspension NPKS fertilizer for nutrition of oil seed rape.

This fertilizer can be obtained using poultry feather as the raw material,sulfuric acid, potassium carbonate and non-litter poultry manure. We present a procedure directed to fertilization of 1 ha arable land for the cultivation of oil seed grain.

The new type of fertilizer was composed of the liquid product of mineralization of poultry feathers by sulfuric acid (A) and crude non-litter poultry husbandry manure (B).The component (A) was prepared by mineralization of 1125 kg of poultry feathers by 2025 kg of 60 % sulfuric acid in the temperature 85-90 oC during 4 hours of retention time[25].

During the process of acidic digestion, protein-nitrogen from keratin is decomposed into ammonia form of nitrogen which is bioavailable to plants.

The post-reaction liquid product was partially neutralized by the addition of 1.863 kg K2CO3. According to the agricultural recommendations for oil seed rape nutrition, we added 13.5 kg of sodium borate Na2B4O7*10 H2O (borax) and 5.22 kg of manganese sulfate monohydrate MnSO4*H2O as necessary micronutrients.The composition of the obtained product, NPKS fertilizer component.

CONCLUSIONS
Presented technological solution of utilization of renewable source of fertilizer nutrients enable to protect environment from undesirable emissions of ammonia and sulphur volatile organic compounds. Such a solution should enable to reduce many times (8-10) emission of odor gases [29].

This concept and new technological solution is the aim of development project with the co-operation with large poultry slaughterhouse with daily production 7-10Mg of waste poultry feather. The obtained fertilizer will be used in local farms. The process is going to be implemented on technical scale.



Courtesy: Complete Report