Chicken Feather Fibre Mat/PLA Composites for Thermal Insulation

Abstract

In order to add more economic value to chicken feather, a waste material of the poultry industry, it has been researched to incorporate chicken feather fibre (CFF) into resin to produce value-added composites. In the present research, chicken feather fibre was separated from the rachises and used to produce fibre mats. Then fibre mats were incorporated into polylactic acid (PLA) to make composites with low thermal conductivity. The procedure for making chicken feather fibre mat using an automatic dynamic sheet former was explored. Two different composite fabrication methods were investigated. One involved fabricate composite samples by hot pressing chicken feather fibre mats with PLA sheet. The other involved making composite specimens by hot pressing PLA powder and chicken feather fibre mats. A decrease in tensile strength compared to PLA had been expected before composite specimen fabricating according to previous research and so alkali treated fibre mats were used to improve tensile strength of composites.

It was concluded that chicken feather fibre mats with uniform quality could be made by controlling the jet-to-spin ratio and water wall thickness of the dynamic sheet former cylinder. Stable mat/PLA composites could be fabricated by hot pressing chicken feather fibre mats with PLA powder. Results from tensile testing indicated that alkali treatment could improve tensile strength to a small degree. SEM image analysis revealed that poor interfacial bonding between fibre barbs and PLA matrix had occurred. Thermal conductivity testing demonstrated improved thermal insulation with addition of CFF to PLA.