The poultry industry produces a great amount of waste feathers
each year, e.g. 1.8 million tons in US [1], which causes an environmentally
difficult disposal problem. Therefore, from both an
economic and environmental point of view, it is quite desirable
to develop effective and profitable process to use these resources.
However, feathers are mainly used as low nutritional value animal
feed. Currently, researchers have been searching for new applications
of feathers and many publications and patents proposing
applications of feathers have been issued. Polyethylene-based composites
can be prepared using keratin fibers obtained from chicken
feathers [2]. Keratin fibers from chicken feathers were used as a
short-fiber reinforcement for a poly(methyl methacrylate) matrix
[3]. Feather keratin and polyurethane were combined to synthesize
hybrid synthetic-natural membranes which could be applied
to separation process [4].