Eastern Bioplastics in Mt. Crawford, Va has developed a system for turning chicken feathers into a composite fiber. The processed feathers are mixed with prolypropylene and polyethylene and then the blended material is run through an extruder where they are turned in injection mold pellets.
The company currently has a patent pending on the wash cycle that’s used to prepare the feathers for processing.
So what makes feathers superior over other bio products?
Sam Carr, the business development manager of Eastern Bioplastics says “If you look at most other biocomposites, a lot of the time they get a little bit heavier,” he says. “Ours is actually a decrease in density, and it increases the flexibility while keeping the same characteristics as far as the tensile and sufficient strength are concerned.”
Also Carr says that the portion of composites that are made from the feathers will not go up in price, like petroleum-based products which are expected to go up as the demand for oil increases.
