With over 1 billion tons 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 subjected 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.
Miscanthus biocarbon (MB), a renewable resource-based, carbon-rich material, was melt-processed with poly (3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) to produce sustainable biocomposites. The addition of the biocarbon improved the Young’s modulus of PHBV from 3.6 to 5.2 GPa at 30 wt % filler loading. An increase in flexural modulus, up to 48%, was also observed. On the other hand, the strength, elongation-at-break and impact strength decreased. Morphological study of the impact-fractured surfaces showed weak interaction at the interface and the existence of voids and agglomerates, especially with high filler contents. The thermal stability of the PHBV/MB composites was slightly reduced compared with the neat PHBV. The biocarbon particles were not found to have a nucleating effect on the polymer. The degradation of PHBV and the formation of unstable imperfect crystals were revealed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis. Higher filler contents resulted in reduced crystallinity, indicating more pronounced effect on polymer chain mobility restriction. With the addition of 30 wt % biocarbon, the heat deflection temperature (HDT) became 13 degrees higher and the coefficient of linear thermal expansion (CLTE) decreased from 100.6 to 75.6 μm/(m·°C), desired improvement for practical applications.
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