Going Coo Coo for Chicken Feathers!
by Don Comis
You can bet that when Walter Schmidt, a chemist with the
Agricultural Research Service, was a kid, he never told his Mom,
"I'm going to study hard and go to college so I can spend all day
making boats out of chicken feathers and playing with them!"
She probably would have made Walter clean up his room. But
chemist Schmidt made the boat as a way of cleaning up the
world. The boat, he explains, is just an easy example of what
could be made by mixing fiberglass with a major agricultural
leftover: chicken feathers.
At ARS' Environmental Management and Byproduct Utilization
Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, Schmidt's job is to study the
size, shape and chemical properties of all kinds of substances and
materials. Doing this with chicken feathers has led Schmidt to
find valuable new ways to recycle the feathers. Toy boat building
isn't really one of them, though canoes made of a fiberglasschicken feather mixture are a possibility.
Why recycle chicken feathers? Well, do you know how many
pounds of chicken feathers are produced by the U.S. poultry
industry each year?
Each year, more than 4 billion pounds of feathers are
produced by the U.S. poultry industry, enough to fill more than a
billion pillowcases! Figuring out what to do with all those feathers
can be a real headache! Most farmers throw them away, or they
grind them up and mix them into animal feed to add protein to
animal diets.
But Schmidt, as an environmental chemist, is always looking
for ways to benefit the environment, such as by keeping
mountains of feathers out of landfills.
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Schmidt put a feather under a powerful electron microscope
to get a close look at each piece or "barb" of a feather on a quill.
Scientists use microscopes to view items too small for the naked
eye. A regular microscope uses visible light to make an image. An
electron microscope is much stronger. It uses electrons—particles
tinier than atoms—to magnify images up to a million times or
more!
What others see as feather, Schmidt sees as keratin fiber.
Keratin is a natural protein, and it's in a lot more things than
feathers. It's basically the same stuff that makes up hair,
hooves—even your fingernails and toenails!
Under a microscope, each barb of a feather looks like a pipe,
the leg of an insect or an elephant's foot, depending on the
magnification.
Keratin is the same type of fiber found in wool. It gives wool
clothes the ability to keep dry even in the rain. The keratin fibers
in feathers are shorter and finer than those in wool, but just as
strong.
Keratin fibers in chicken feathers are much stronger and more
absorbent than wood fibers—called plant cellulose. Keratin also
breaks down in landfills much faster than plastic.
Besides the model boat, Schmidt has tinkered with chicken
feather fibers to make other things. Just a few of these are dyed
paper, cloth, paper plant pots and air filters for buildings and
cars.
Speaking of cars, Schmidt has also blended feathers and
plastic to make materials that could be molded into auto
dashboards and door panels. Do you think a car named the
Cluckmobile would be a big seller, though? They may need to
work on the name.
Insulation for homes is another possibility, says Schmidt. And,
he has gone to different companies to see if they could use their
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machines to make new test products out of chicken feathers. So
far, they've made diapers and filters as well as insulation.
Schmidt says the feather fibers can come from any bird. But
commercial chickens have built-in color control: they're bred to
always have the same white feathers.
Back to this boat business . . . Does it actually float? "It
does," says Schmidt.
END OF TEXT
"Going Coo Coo for Chicken Feathers!" by Don Comis. In the public domain.
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