Microscale combustion calorimetry assessment of green composites made with chicken feather-modified soy protein resins and jute fabric

Abstract

Biodegradable, and sustainably produced, ‘green’ plastics are actively being researched to replace conventional, environmentally harmful petroleum-based plastics. However, before these green plastics get adopted, they must match the properties of their conventional counterparts. In many applications, fire-safety can be a key parameter where naturally derived green materials could potentially outcompete petroleum-based plastics. In the present research, green resins and composites were fabricated using soy protein isolate (SPI), waste chicken feather fibers (CFF), jute fabric (JF), and glutaraldehyde (GA), and evaluated for their critical fire-safety parameters through Microscale Cone Calorimetry (MCC) characterization. The loading of CFF from 0 to 30 wt% increased the specific peak heat release rate (pHRR) from 101 to 120 W/g for CFF/SPI resins without GA and from 94.5 to 114 W/g for GA crosslinked CFF/SPI resins. GA was thus shown to improve fire-safety for CFF/SPI resins. However, for JF/(CFF/SPI) composites, CFF did not show a proportional relationship with fire-safety. Rather, at 20 wt% CFF, the pHRR was minimized to 81.1 W/g for JF/(CFF/SPI) composites without GA and to 86.0 W/g for GA-crosslinked JF/(CFF/SPI) composites. This demonstrated that the addition of JF improved fire-safety despite its known combustibility, and even removed the need of the toxic crosslinker GA. Results also indicated that all variations of the fabricated CFF/SPI resins and JF/(CFF/SPI) composites had lower specific pHRR than typical petroleum-based plastics, clearly demonstrating the benefits of switching to SPI based green resins and composites. These green composites would be suitable for many applications including housing and transportation where fire-safety can be critical.