Grant: Idea to Innovation

About 30% of the global production of chicken eggs are processed at breaking plants to produce commercial and consumer liquid egg products. High-throughput breaking machines can process over three eggs per second while breaking, emptying, collecting the egg contents, and diverting the eggshells for disposal. The crushed eggshells, which contain both the shell and the Eggshell Membranes (ESM), discharged by these machines are then mainly sold as fertilizer for soil amendment or feedstock supplement. Recent research on ESM has demonstrated its potential clinical benefits and has spurred the development and marketing of numerous innovative health products for joint pain, wound healing, and skin care. However, current commercial collection of ESM from the discharged mixtures involves air or water-based flotation approaches and acid treatments to remove the shell from the ESM. There are several disadvantages of these technologies from product quality to the generation of chemical and aqueous waste with high biochemical oxygen demand. To address these shortcomings, our team has invented a new tool for extracting the ESM directly from the eggshell mechanically, without the need for chemicals or large quantities of water. The goal is of this project is to incorporate this proven technology in a prototype egg breaking machine. The successful creation of a proof-of-concept will justify its implementation in an industrial context and spur the development of an automated egg breaking automated machine focused on ESM extraction.