Abstract
It is known that aqueous keratin hydrolysate solutions can be produced from feathers using superheated water as solvent. This method is optimized in this study by varying the time and temperature of the heat treatment in order to obtain a high solute content in the solution. With the dissolved polypeptides, films are produced using methyl cellulose as supporting material. Thereby, novel composite membranes are produced from bio-waste. It is expected that these materials exhibit both protein and polysaccharide properties. The influence of the embedded keratin hydrolysates on the methyl cellulose structure is investigated using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and wide angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD). Adsorption peaks of both components are present in the spectra of the membranes, while the X-ray analysis shows that the polypeptides are incorporated into the semi-crystalline methyl cellulose structure. This behavior significantly influences the mechanical properties of the composite films as is shown by tensile tests. Since further processing steps, e.g., crosslinking, may involve a heat treatment, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) is applied to obtain information on the thermal stability of the composite materials.
Highlights
The utilization of bio-based materials is an efficient approach to reduce the negative impacts of petroleum-based products such as CO2 emission and global pollution
It is known that by using superheated water, feathers from chicken and goose can be decomposed into water soluble polypeptides with a molecular weight around 1–1.8 kDa [10,11]
These results reveal that the mechanical properties change significantly with increasing polypeptide fraction
Summary
The utilization of bio-based materials is an efficient approach to reduce the negative impacts of petroleum-based products such as CO2 emission and global pollution. Biomaterials from renewable resources such as proteins or polysaccharides are increasingly gaining interest since they are considered as renewable, environmentally friendly, non-toxic, biocompatible, biodegradable and inexpensive materials [1]. One of the most abundant proteins in nature is keratin. As feathers contain around 90 w% keratin, they are an attractive material for obtaining this insoluble and highly durable protein [2]. Huge amounts of feathers are produced as a byproduct of the poultry industry; most of them are burned in waste incinerating plants, disposed of in landfills or recycled into low quality animal feeds. Thereby a potentially valuable resource is wasted, and certain environmental problems are caused [2,3,4,5]
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