Application of a biocatalyst at an industrial scale primarily depends on its intrinsic properties, the nature of the support materials, and the scalability of the catalyst. Support materials play an important role in the biocatalytic performance with their mechanical and thermal properties, accessibility, nontoxicity, and ease of derivatization for immobilizion of enzyme. Chicken feather, a readily available poultry waste material, was processed and modified for enzyme immobilization. Free Trametes maxima laccase (TML) was immobilized on the amino-functionalized chicken feather particles (TML@ACFP), and an immobilization yield of 74.24% was achieved. Immobilization improved the pH optimum from 3.0 (TML) to 4.1 (TML@ACFP) and temperature optimum by 5 °C. The kinetics and thermodynamics of thermal inactivation of free TML and immobilized TML@ACFP were studied over the temperature range from 55 to 65 °C. The apparent half-life (t 1/2) and decimal reduction time (D-value) for TML was found to be 154.9 and 514.8 min and 256.8 and 853.3 min for TML@ACFP, respectively, at 55 °C. The activation energy for deactivation (E d) was found to be 117.48 and 137.85 kJ/mol for TML and TML@ACFP, respectively. Gibbs free energy (ΔG) and change in enthalpy (ΔH) were increased from 106.58 and 114.75 kJ/mol for TML to 107.96 and 135.12 kJ/mol for TML@ACFP, respectively, demonstrating its higher stability. The biocatalytic transformation was performed with TML@ACFP for the oxidation of lignin model compound veratryl alcohol. So far, this is the first strategy that uses chicken feather waste derived novel support material for immobilization of enzyme and its application in the biotransformation.

Magnetically separable poultry chicken feathers were found to be efficient, green and heterogeneous catalyst for oxidation of alcohols and sulfides to the corresponding carbonyl compounds and sulfoxides, respectively using t-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) as oxidant with complete selectivity and higher conversions. The developed catalyst exhibited higher stability, activity and better recycling ability than the bare magnetic nanoparticles. The designed catalyst could readily be recovered by external magnet without showing any significant leaching during the reaction.

An efficient and simple method for graft copolymerization of powdered chicken feather (CF) with vinyl monomers without any free radical initiator is reported. Various vinyl monomers such as glycidyl methacrylate (GMA), styrene (S), and methyl methacrylate (MMA); (20-60 wt % with respect to CF) were successfully grafted to chicken feather (CF) by using sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS, 0.086-0.5 mmol) in the absence of any catalyst or initiator. Most likely, the hydrophilicity, hydrophobicity, and complex forming properties of chicken feather keratin with surfactant molecules were responsible for efficient grafting of polymers on CF surface. The effect of polymerization conditions, such as monomer concentration, temperature, and time of reaction, on the grafting parameters such as monomer conversion, grafting efficiency, and molar grafting ratio were studied. The described method showed a good potential of using low cost, easily accessible poultry chicken feathers as grafting material and self catalyzing agent for graft copolymerization with vinyl monomers to produce low cost commodity plastic for various end uses. V C 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl.Polym. Sci. 2017, 134, 44645.

Poultry waste chicken feathers, an inexpensive and abundantly available material has been used as a renewable support for immobilizing a cobalt phthalocyanine catalyst.