Tough and wet stable protein fibers from poultry feathers have been made on a pilot scale via wet-spinning in an aqueous system. Despite decades of efforts on utilization of keratinous wastes, very few high-quality products were reported due to failures in retaining primary protein structures and recovery of disulfide crosslinkages in regenerated materials. Textile fibers have the highest quality requirements among the regenerated keratin products, including high toughness and resistance to repeated laundering. We achieved scalable production of keratin fibers suitable for textile applications via retention of protein backbones and thiol groups during protein extraction and dissolution, and controlled assembly of secondary structures as well as incorporation of disaccharide-tetra-aldehydes in the regeneration. Resultant protein fibers from chicken feathers were wet stable, with a 92% tenacity retention after immersion in water for one week, and tough, with 120%, 90%, 88%, and 86% of dry tenacity, wet tenacity, dry toughness, and wet toughness, respectively, compared to wool fibers. The overall spinning and aldehyde crosslinking process did not introduce toxicity. Furthermore, fine control of structures of disaccharide-tetra-aldehydes minimized the amount of crosslinkages, and thus, consumption of amines, to retain enough free amine groups as dyesites in the fibers. The feather keratin fibers, therefore, have excellent dyeability with acid dyes. This work promotes resource recovery from poultry wastes, decreases the reliance on petroleum-based products, and reduces the environmental impact of fiber industries.

Pilot-scale production of tough and wet stable protein fibers from chicken feathers

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