Characterization of Chicken Feather Biocarbon for Use in Sustainable Biocomposites

With over 1 billion tonnes of food waste generated annually, there is potential for the waste to be re-purposed. The generation of products from food-industry waste not only reduces the environmental burden of the materials but gives a new value to waste. A common waste material from the food industry is chicken feathers (ChF), a by-product of the chicken meat processing industry. In this work, ChF were subject to slow pyrolysis at varying temperatures. A complete analysis was completed to determine the yield, ash, chemical composition and morphology of the samples. X-ray diffraction analysis indicated that lower temperature samples were more amorphous, whereas higher temperature samples exhibited more graphitic content. After characterization, the biocarbon was combined with poly(lactic acid) (PLA) to generate sustainable 100 % biobased composites. Both composites had moduli that were more than 115 % greater than that of the neat polymer. The success of the composites demonstrated that ChF biocarbon can be used as a sustainable and cost effective filler. The use of this material gives new purpose to a waste product and contributes to the goal of sustainable product development.