Evaluation of Elastomeric Composites Reinforced with Chicken Feathers

Abstract

The use of reinforcements from natural or animal sources has recently taken relevance because it is a good way of obtaining improved polymers while reducing the environmental impact of the poultry industry, and at the same time, it allows to take advantage of the large amount of waste materials that is frequently considered useless. Styrene-butadiene copolymer (SBS) is used in a wide range of applications, for example, in shoes, adhesives, tires, plastic and asphalt modifiers, among others. However, SBS has limitations due to its mechanical and thermal properties; in some cases, it has been reinforced with particles in order to improve its thermomechanical behavior. Chicken feathers (CFs) represent a waste material from the poultry farming that has not been widely used in the polymer industry yet. Furthermore, in some cases, its final disposal management implies additional costs. CFs is mainly composed of keratin, a mix of proteins that have good mechanical and thermal properties. In the present work, CFs were milled and mixed with SBS with the aim of preparing SBS-CF composites. Composite materials were produced by means of a melt-mixing technique, and the effect of zinc oxide (ZnO) as coupling agent was evaluated. Three different concentrations of CFs at varying mixing speeds were tested with the aim of assessing their effect on the SBS-CF composites properties. The composites thermal properties were measured by means of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), while their morphologic properties were evaluated by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).