New process turns waste chicken feathers into biodegradable plastic

[The Straight Story]

New process turns waste chicken feathers into biodegradable plastic

"Chicken feathers are one of those materials that is still basically waste," said Yiqi Yang, a researcher at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and one of the authors of the new research. Feathers are mostly made of keratin, the protein that's responsible for the strength of wool, hair, fingernails, and hooves, he added. So they "should be useful as a material."

Past efforts to create plastic from feathers resulted in products that didn’t hold up mechanically or weren't completely water-resistant, said Yang’s University of Nebraska colleague Narenda Reddy, who also worked on the project.

To make the new plastic, the researchers started with chicken and turkey feathers that had been cleaned and pulverized into a fine dust. They then added chemicals that made the keratin molecules join together to form long chains -- a process called polymerization. The team presented their work March 24 at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim, California.

The plastic they made was stronger than similar materials made from starch or soy proteins, and it stood up to water. Moreover, high temperature treatment of the feathers at the start of the process would blast out any possible contamination, such as from bird flu, according to Reddy.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-chicken-feathers-biodegradable-plastic.html


Cool, now I can my chicken home in a package made from the chicken :)

[DCKit]

1. Great, so now what are they going to use to make McNuggets? nt

[eilen]

2. I saw this show where they were using feathers to load up

hydrogen for hydrogen powered cars (helps load extra without lots of pressure).

[kestrel91316]

3. Yeah, I saw that. They carbonize the ground up feathers. Amazing.