Studies on Feather – Cotton Handmade Paper

Nearly one hundred thousand tons of chicken feathers are generated by the poultry industry in India every year. The generation of this waste in general in Asia, particularly in India is not concentrated at processing plants alone like in other well developed parts of the world. Major portion of these feathers go as waste and are disposed off. Thus both generation and waste disposal in India are different from that of developed countries. Chemically, feather is all keratin and a substantial portion of it is fibrous that qualifies it as a suitable material in the development of composite materials. This study makes an effort to investigate whether chicken feather fiber (CFF) is an alternative in order to replace cotton partially or fully for making hand made paper. Feather fiber hand made paper samples were prepared using cold digestion and Alkaline Peroxide Pressure (APP) digestion processes with varying bath compositions, digestion temperatures and soaking periods. It was observed that APP digestion gives better results compared to cold digestion. The best results were obtained in APP digestion at 105°C temperature and one hour soaking period. The properties like tensile strength, burst strength, porosity, double fold, brightness etc. were determined. Thermal conductivity was found to be at par with Styrofoam. SEM analysis revealed that in APP process at 105°C, the fibers formed a self matrix resulting in reasonably stronger paper. It was observed that chicken feather fiber could replace cotton fiber up to 40% in hand made paper for applications like filters, blotters, insulators, decorative wrappings etc.