Waste feather biodegradable plastic

The U.S. poultry industry produces 911 to 1.36 million tons of waste feathers each year. This kind of waste feathers is not crushed into animal feed or burned or buried. This waste can now be made into biodegradable plastics using methods developed by researchers at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Ames laboratory. Since the method uses waste and can be made into a plastic material by simple processing, the production cost of the feather-derived resin is lower than that of other biodegradable plastics. Feather contains approximately 80% (mass fraction) of keratin, a hydrophobic biodegradable protein. Under pressure, the feathers are boiled to extract keratin, which is then dried and pulverized. Finally, it is mixed with soy protein, biodegradable polyester, and plasticizer, and the resulting resin is heated and soft. This resin contains 70% (mass fraction) of keratin, which can be molded into horticultural crops, agricultural coatings and packaging materials.

Reproduced from: China Plastics Additives Network