EFFECT OF HOUSEHOLD CHEMICALS (CLEANING LIQUID AND VINEGAR) ON DEGRADATION OF CHICKEN FEATHER WASTE.

Poultry farming apart from being an economically viable sector, is also known to generate humongous amount of waste as chicken feathers, which needs attention. Keratin is the main structural protein of chicken feathers and is known to have great mechanical strength. As keratin contains disulphide bonds and hydrophobic residues, it is difficult to degrade chicken feathers. Acid hydrolysis and alkali hydrolysis are some of the methods, used to degrade this waste. In this regard, the present study was undertaken, to know, if house hold chemicals such as cleaning liquid (main ingredient HCL) and vinegar (acetic acid + water) can be effective in degrading the chicken feathers. Chicken feathers, were treated with both cleaning liquid and vinegar. Results showed that cleaning liquid was found to be very effective in degrading the chicken feathers rather than vinegar. Feathers, lost their structural integrity under the influence of the acid, after being exposed to 48 hrs at room temperature. but with vinegar, when feathers, even after being exposed to a period of 96 hrs, still, retained their structural integrity and no disintegration was observed. Therefore, this study suggests that acid hydrolysis using a strong acid at room temperature may be an effective way to degrade the feathers, however this method may not be a suitable one to extract keratin from the chicken feathers. In this study only a small sample of 4-5 feathers were used for acid hydrolysis, but when large scale disintegration is needed, a more ecofriendly approach may be developed and employed in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]