Blood to heat homes?

Press, 11 August 1980, Page 24

Blood to heat homes?

PA Hamilton Animal blood may one day help heat New Zealand homes, according to the director of the Coal Research Association, Mr P. Toynbee. Animal blood, a waste product of freezing works, was being treated as a binding agent for coal briquettes, he told the annual conference of the North Island Coal Merchants’ Federation at Hamilton.

Much development testing was yet to be acne, but initial work suggested it could be more economic than imported bitumen now used at the Rotowaro briquette factory, he said. Dried blood was offered bv the Meat Research Institute as an adhesive, and its possibilities in briquette manufacture had been picked up by the Coal Research Association.

Binding agents now used were tar and pitch extracted in the coal carbonising process, plus bitumen. Blood in concentrated rather than dried form offered the best economic advantage, said Mr Toynbee. Problems to be investigated included preserving the blood before use and drying of briquettes.