Chicken feathers, as unlikely as it seems, have turned out to be
a wonderfully useful material. Among other things, researchers
have found they make for great circuit boards and cheap,
efficient storage tanks for hydrogen. Now it turns out they
could also be used to create biodegradable, petroleum-free
plastics. Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln say
that the protein keratin in chicken feathers, which is strong
and durable, as well as the fact that so many of them end up as
unused waste, is what makes them such an appealing material.
When making the plastic, the scientists heat-treated the
feathers to clean them and then pulverized them into a fine
powder. They then added chemicals that made the keratin
molecules join together into long chains and create a polymer.
The resulting plastic was stronger than other bioplastics made
of soy beans or starch and it stood up to water. The material is
a thermoplastic which means that heat can be used to mold it
into various products and can be melted and