Abstract
Three to four billion pounds of chicken feathers are wasted in the United States annually. These feathers pose an environmental challenge. In order to find a commercial application of these otherwise wasted feathers, composites have been prepared from feathers. Flexural, impact resistance, and sound dampening properties of composites from chicken feather fiber (FF) and High Density Polyethylene/Polypropylene (HDPE/PP) fiber have been investigated and compared with pulverized chicken quill-HDPE/PP, and jute-HDPE/PP composites. Sound dampening by FF composites was 125% higher than jute and similar to quill although mechanical properties were inferior to the latter two. In ground form, FF and jute composite properties were similar except for 34% higher modulus of jute; under the same formulation and processing conditions, ground FF composites had nearly 50% lower mechanical properties compared with ground quill composites. It was found that voids and density of composites have effect on mechanical and sound dampening properties; however, no direct relationship was found between mechanical properties and sound dampening.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 131-142 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Journal of Polymers and the Environment |
Volume | 17 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 2009 |
Keywords
- Acoustic composites
- Biofibers
- Composites
- Feather fiber
- Poultry feather
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Environmental Engineering
- Polymers and Plastics
- Materials Chemistry