New sustainable materials from waste feathers: Properties of hot-pressed feather/cotton/bi-component fibre boards

Abstract

Feathers from poultry are an abundant, globally available waste. The current beneficial reuse for feathers involves autoclaving them to produce feather meal, an animal feed with low economic value. This paper reports on the production and performance of new feather-derived materials. These have potential to provide a higher value application for waste feathers. Feather fibres, cotton fibres and polyethylene/polypropylene bi-component fibres (blended 55:20:25 by weight) have been air-laid to form 20mm thick non-woven pre-forms with a density of 0.14 g cm-2. These were then hot pressed to produce materials with significantly higher density and improved properties. Optimum materials were formed by hot pressing between 150 and 160°C at 6 MPa for 1 minute. Lower temperatures resulted in poor fibre bonding and fibre pull-out during fracture. Higher temperatures caused thermal degradation of the feather fibres. The optimum feather fibre boards with a density of 0.77 g/cm 3 , corresponding to 31.3% porosity, had tensile strengths of 17.9 MPa a tensile modulus of 1.74 GPa and an elongation at fracture of 5.9%. These samples exhibited fibre fracture during tensile testing. Feather fibre boards have similar tensile strength, density and Young's modulus to particleboard, organic resin particleboard and flake board. Quantitative estimates of the economic and environmental benefits from using feather fibres to form feather fibre boards are discussed. The research advances sustainability by providing a new potential circular economy outlet for waste feathers and is part of ongoing research to develop novel applications that exploit the unique properties of feathers.

Comparison between pea and soy protein‐based bioplastics obtained by injection molding

“…Another option that is gaining interest lately is the use of protein‐rich agri‐food by‐products for the elaboration of these bioplastics. This raw material is undervalued (since it is used as animal feed, which has low cost), thus its use to produce bioplastics can generate added value due to not many raw materials are valid for use as bioplastics 14,15 . In this context, studies have been carried out with different protein‐rich by‐products.…”

Analysis of Barriers to Transitioning from a Linear to a Circular Economy for End of Life Materials: A Case Study for Waste Feathers

“…The chemical composition combined with the structure produces the unique combination of properties of feathers, and these include high tensile strength and toughness, extremely low density and excellent thermal insulating properties. Exploiting these characteristics in new materials manufactured from waste feathers has been the subject of increased research in recent years [54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62]. Although down feathers are used for filling duvets, clothes and upholstery, only a very small percentage of the waste feathers produced and available from the poultry industry are beneficially reused.…”

“…The European poultry industry currently generates approximately 3.1 Million tonnes per year of wet, soiled feather filter cake [58]. Typical feather waste material is displayed in Figure 2.…”

Innovation in sustainable construction materials and the circular economy

“…This has led to the development of novel thermal insulation products for houses, sustainable thermal insulation packaging (Dieckmann et al, 2019a) low-temperature thermal insulation, sound absorption materials (Dieckmann et al, 2018), oil spill and oil removal products. In addition, hot-pressing air laid feather fibre textiles produces rigid boardtype materials with mechanical properties with potential for use in automotive, construction and civil design applications where there is a strong demand for natural and eco-friendly materials (Dieckmann et al, 2019b). In this work non-woven samples have been hot-pressed at a range of temperatures and pressures and the density, tensile strength, tensile modulus, microstructure and fracture mechanism of different board materials formed are reported.…”