Composite Materials Based on Waste Chicken Feather Fibers for Oil-Spill Management

Figures & data

Figure 1. Waste chicken feathers after washing and drying.

Figure 2. Composite pillows made from loose feathers and sepiolite in PET fabric.

Figure 3. Composite sample (FS-sheet) prepared from feathers and sepiolite.

Table 1. Designations and composition of the samples.

Sample designation	Sample composition
F	Loose feathers
S	Sepiolite particles
F-pillow	Pillow composites made from feathers and PET fabric
FS-pillow	Pillow composites made from feathers, sepiolite, and PET fabric
F-sheet	Thermally compressed composite sample composed from feathers bonded with PLA
FS-sheet	Thermally compressed composite sample composed from feathers and sepiolite bonded with PLA

Figure 4. Scanning electron micrographs of chicken feathers: whole feather (a), rachis and barb (b), barbules (c and d).

Figure 5. Scanning electron micrographs of cross-sections of a barb (a) and barbule (b) showing the details of the walls of the internal “honeycomb” structure (c and d).

Figure 6. Scanning electron micrographs of the sepiolite specimen at 50x (a) and 2500x (b) magnification.

Figure 7. FTIR spectrum of chicken feathers.

Figure 8. The FTIR spectrum of the sepiolite sample.

Figure 9. Zeta potential as a function of pH for feather marked as x) and sepiolite (marked as o) samples.

Table 2. Viscosity (η), Density (ρ), Surface tension (SFT) of test liquids and their corresponding dispersive (Dis) and polar (Pol) contributions, and polarity.

Test liquid	η (mPas)	ρ (g/cm^3)	SFE ${\gamma }_l$ (mN/m)	Dis ${\gamma }_l^d$ (mN/m)	Pol ${\gamma }_l^p$ (mN/m)	Polarity ${\gamma }_l^p/{\gamma }_l$ (%)
n-heptane	0.409	0.684	20.4 ± 0.1	20.4 ±0.1	0.0 ± 0.0	1.0
Water	1.002	0.998	72.8 ± 0.1	22.1 ± 0.0	50.7 ± 0.1	0.70
Diiodomethane	2.762	3.325	50.8 ± 0.0	49.0 ± 0.0	1.8 ± 0.0	0.04

Table 3. The surface tension (${\gamma }_l)$ and its dispersive (${\gamma }_l^d)$ and polar (${\gamma }_l^p)$ contributions of sample diesel oil.

Sample	${\gamma }_l$	${\gamma }_l^d$	${\gamma }_l^p$
Diesel oil	30.68 ± 0.19	0.608	30.97

Table 4. The total surface free energies (SFE) and their dispersive and polar contributions estimated by OWRK model for sepiolite (S), feathers (F) and polyester fabric (PET).

Sample	SFE ${\gamma }_s$ (mN/m)	Dis ${\gamma }_s^d$ (mN/m)	Pol ${\gamma }_s^p$ (mN/m)
S	41.82 ± 6.64	38.78 ± 6.22	3.04 ± 1.74
F	18.86 ± 4.34	9.20 ± 3.03	9.66 ± 3.11
PET	19.94 ± 3.35	17.18 ± 4.05	2.75 ± 0.74

Table 5. Gibbs free energy of wetting ($$G) and work of adhesion (W_sl) for the solid/liquid systems (feathers/oil (F/oil) and sepiolite/oil (S/oil)).

Samples	$$G (mJ)	Wsl (mJ/m^2)
S/oil	4,13	29,11
F/oil	−6,08	39,32
PET/oil	8.32	24.92

Figure 10. The oil adsorption capacity as mass ratio of oil adsorbed to dry adsorbent weight of loose feathers (F), pillow composites (F-pillow, FS-pillow) and sheet composites (F-sheet, FS-sheet).