April 15, 2011
BY Erin Krueger
Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have developed a process to convert chicken feathers into biobased plastic. The team, led by UNL professor of biological systems engineering Yiqi Yang, used a chemical modification process to transform poultry feathers into a biodegradable thermoplastic.
According to Yang, the project has been underway for several years. While the team initially tried to use the feather-based plastic as is, they recently discovered that modifying the material on a molecular basis via a chemical process could broaden the range of applications for the resulting material. “Without a chemical modification, [you] cannot melt the feather [plastic],” he said. “In order to make [the plastic] into different materials, you need to change its shape. The cheapest way to do it is using heat. We chemically modified it to make it malleable without damaging the polymer so that people can use heat to make different shapes out of the material.” The chemical used in the process is methyl acrylate.
To date the process has been evaluated at the bench-scale. Yang says his team is currently seeking funding and partnerships to allow testing to be scaled up to pilot-scale. Rather than seeking grants, Yang says the team would prefer to collaborate with a member of the plastics industry.
There are several benefits to using poultry feathers as a feedstock for bioplastic production, Yang said. “First of all, the raw material is very cheap because it is currently [considered] waste,” he said. The low price of feedstock translates into a relatively low cost for the resulting bioplastic. “A lot of times you have biomaterials to substitute a petroleum-based material, but the price is too high,” he said. “Using feathers, the price won’t be too high.”
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In addition, the resulting plastic has good properties. While many biobased plastics, such as those manufactured from starch, are not stable in water, Yang notes feather-based plastics are more stable because it’s “structured like human hair.” However, unlike petroleum-based plastics, the material will eventually degrade. Yang estimates it will take the material between 50 and 100 years to break down in the environment.
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