Composite with Smart Fibrous Material
Abstract
Inhabitants chomp lot of chicken. All that chicken-ingestion habits of inhabitants translates into stacks and stacks of chicken feathers. The feather quill and fiber are pure sources of the structural protein keratin. Since the demand for feather is low, most of those are burned, buried or used as fertilizer. Economic pressure exists to find a more stable and profitable value-added product from poultry feathers. So the waste chicken feathers were collected from poultry units and are cleaned with a polar solvent like ethanol and dried. The quills are removed and the short fibers (10-30 mm length) are obtained. These fibers in pre-determined weight proportion are processed to make random orientation and made into a composite using polypropylene as a matrix by compression moulding technique. Chicken feather fibres are found to possess high toughness, good thermal insulation and acoustic properties, non abrasive behavior, more hydrophilic & less hydrophobic in nature. Their low cost, low density and large aspect ratio can make them good reinforcing materials as a matrix composite. The hollow, light weight fibers naturally contain a significant volume of air which made their dielectric constants lower than e-glass fibers. To aid the development of successful applications for chicken feather fibres in composite making, this research work has been taken up. "Waste Feathers turn into a value added product"
About the Authors
Mr. D. Vasanth Kumar is Lecturer in Department of Textile Technology (MMFT) at Thiagarajar Polytechnic College, Salem, India and Mr. K. Saravanan is Senior Lecturer in Department of Textile Technology at Kumaraguru College of Technology, Coimbatore, India.
