When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asked the Food Manufacturing Coalition to assemble a list of the worst environmental problems facing the food processing and manufacturing industries, surprisingly high on the list was waste eggshells.

Joe MacNeil (center), professor emeritus of food science, is joined by (left) Harlan Hemple, director of Ovogen LLC, which will manufacture eggshell separation equipment using MacNeil's process, and Jowl Cutler of Cutler Eggs, which licenses the process from Penn State.

Every year, literal mountains of eggshells are produced as food processors and other U.S. manufacturers use eggs to make everything from fast food to snack cakes, breads to biomedicals.

Nationally, manufacturers use more than 50 million cases of eggs each year, generating 120,000 tons of waste eggshells. Companies are paying up to $100,000 per year to dispose of this expensive waste in landfills that are quickly reaching capacity.

Now, thanks to the efforts of Joe MacNeil, professor emeritus of food science, those mounting eggshells will be transformed into valuable products, giving manufacturers a new profit stream while saving disposal costs and helping the environment. MacNeil has developed a way to separate egg membrane (the paper-thin protein sheath between the shell and egg white) from the shell, creating two marketable products from one waste product.

"Eggs are in lots of products, including mayonnaise, noodles, shampoos, cake mixes, and fast foods," MacNeil explains. "So there are a lot of eggshell producers who are generating more waste shells every year. Unless the shells are made microbiologically safe, many state laws require that they be disposed of as organic waste in appropriate landfills. As landfill regulations have become more restrictive, egg processors asked for help with this problem. There are many uses for separated shell and membrane, but not many with membrane and shell stuck together."

With funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, MacNeil tried idea after idea to separate fragile shell from tenacious membrane. He tried crushing, acids, strong base solutions, boiling, and even sandpaper and tumbling in a stone-filled chamber. "Every time I tried something, I'd look at the shells under the microscope and still see membrane stuck to them," he says. "It became very obvious that I needed a process that was abrasive."

Finally, he tried the unorthodox--running the eggshells through a unique meat-processing machine he'd used on other projects--and magic happened. "It's not just a grinder; it peels and strips, scraping rather than crushing," MacNeil says. The system proved near-perfect, separating shell from membrane with great speed. A new process was born, and it has been licensed to Cutler Eggs of Philadelphia by Penn State's Intellectual Property Office. While the patent is pending, MacNeil must limit discussing details of the process, but Cutler Eggs has already assembled a production model.

The benefits from the new process are many. The processed eggshells will be turned into an excellent source of calcium, enriching everything from animal feeds and toothpaste to orange juice. Instead of paying thousands in hauling and disposal fees annually, egg processors can now sell clean shells to other manufacturers for up to $29 per pound.

But much greater income-generating potential lies with the egg membrane, which has been identified as an excellent source of raw collagen, a biomedical product now in increasing demand for the production of skin graft and tissue replacement products, dental implants, angioplasty sleeves, and cornea repair. Purified collagen is now selling for up to $1,000 per gram.

Ronald Philips, executive director of the Food Manufacturing Coalition, says that MacNeil's research talents anchored a team that stretched across many miles and several organizations. "This was an outstanding example of bridging university research and industry need, particularly in the environmental area," he says. "It wasn't an attempt to push a technology into the marketplace; instead, we created the 'pull' from the industry side."

As head of Cutler Eggs of Philadelphia, Joel Cutler knows about the pull from industry. He was interested in MacNeil's research from the earliest discussions. "I've worked with Joe for years," Cutler explains, "and I was confident that he'd come up with something that wasn't just a test-tube solution." Within days of seeing the experimental design in MacNeil's laboratory, Cutler's company assembled a working prototype in his Philadelphia plant. They now hold the sole license from Penn State for the process, and will be working with a consortium of nine other companies to have the machines constructed around the country.

"Without the state's support of University research, there would be no platform for people like Joe MacNeil," says Donald Thompson, head of the Department of Food Science. "Without the further investments of corporate sponsors and partners, our department couldn't do cooperative and relevant research."

MacNeil is hoping that the lightning of innovation will strike twice: he's just started researching eggshell reclamation from poultry hatcheries. Since one hatchery can generate more than 78,000 eggshells per day, it's a challenge of enormous scale--just the way MacNeil likes it.

--Gary Abdullah