Sustainable and practical utilization of feather keratin by an innovative physicochemical pretreatment: high density steam flash-explosion

Abstract

Currently, great attention is being paid to the utilization of biomass, such as feather keratins. It is imperative to extract and dissolve keratins from animal keratinous materials for exploitation of innovative biopolymers. However, most of the current processes are based on strong acid and alkali hydrolysis, chemical cleavage and other violent reactions, which are not eco-friendly and/or result in severe degradation and destruction of feather keratins. In this study, high density steam flash-explosion (HDSF) as an innovative pretreatment of biomass was firstly employed to treat feather waste. In HDSF treatment, steam with a powerful seepage force first penetrates into fibrous tissues and cells of feathers, and then quickly expands and breaks free of the structure upon an explosive decompression at supersonic speed (within 0.0875 s). HDSF effectively destabilized β-sheet crystals and intermolecular disulfide bonds without causing substantial damage to the keratin protein chain, dramatically increasing the extraction and dissolubility of feather keratins in polar solvents like water, salt solution and weak bases, as well as enzymatic accessibility. HDSF treatment could be a sustainable and practical pretreatment for extraction of feather keratin for exploitation of biomaterials and conversion of feathers to nutrient animal feed instead of the current chemical hydrolysis and hydrothermal treatment.

Efficient and eco-friendly extraction of corn germ oil using aqueous ethanol solution assisted by steam explosion

“…The completion of high-pressure saturated steam releasing in an extremely short time could provide enough force to split cell wall and break the cellulose chain, and avoid a long time of violent treatment under high temperature. In recent years, the utilization of steam explosion has adequately expanded to variety biomasses, such as microalgal (Cheng et al 2015), wool (Tonin et al 2006) and feather Zhao et al 2012). Nevertheless, the report of using steam explosion in oilseeds for enhancing free oil yield is exceedingly limited.…”

Graft modification of methyl acrylate onto chicken feather via surface initiated Cu(0)‐mediated reversible‐deactivation radical polymerization

“…Both feather and feather‐Br showed similar patterns, and two major peaks of alpha‐helix and beta sheet were observed at ~9° and ~20°, respectively. However, the intensities of these peaks decreased slightly, and the peak of beta‐sheet shifted to ~19°, suggesting the slight damaging to the crystalline structure and causing decomposition in beta‐sheet folding structure …”

Isolation, chemical characterization, and immunomodulatory activity of naturally acetylated hemicelluloses from bamboo shavings

“…Steam explosion, as a method for pretreatment of biomass, has been widely used for the breakdown of structural lignocellulosic materials (Song et al, 2014). This method is based on pressurizing and forcing steam into fibrous tissues and cells of a biomass, followed by rapidly releasing the pressure in an explosive decompression step and disrupting molecular interactions between hemicelluloses and other cell wall components (Zhao et al, 2012). It has the advantages of a significantly lower environmental impact, lower capital investment, and the use of less hazardous chemicals (Gong et al, 2012).…”