Thermal characterization of chicken feather/PLA biocomposites

In this work, thermal properties of composites from chicken feather fiber (CFF) and polylactic acid (PLA) were investigated. CFF/PLA green composites were manufactured by extrusion and injection molding. Short and long fibers (3 and 20 mm) were used at different contents (2, 5 and 10 mass%). The effects of fiber concentration and fiber length on thermal properties of CFF/PLA composites were studied. Thermal properties of CFF/PLA composites were examined through differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TG) and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). From the experiments, it was found that addition of CFF was effective to improve the thermal properties of PLA. The DSC results showed that heat flow increased with the increase in CFF content on the glass transition, on the crystallization temperature and on melting temperature. The TG results revealed that addition of CFF to PLA had positive effect on the thermal stability. In addition, the results of DMA experiments showed that the tan delta decreased with the increasing CFF content, indicating less damping and more elastic behavior in the composites. The results obtained from this study provide important information on the temperature-dependent properties of CFF/PLA and lead to new product development based on natural resources.