Attic Insulation Chicken Feathers

Right now lots of chicken feathers are sent to landfill though not in britain or incinerated and that comes at a financial cost to the plant owners and an environmental cost to everyone else.

Attic insulation chicken feathers.

Initially the team at aeropowder experimented with using finely ground chicken feathers as insulation. In particular the poultry industry generates a large amount of feather waste that would otherwise go unused. Cleaned feathers were mechanically worked to separate fibrous material from the quills and ultimately classified into two components. It s very lightweight and also less flammable than some other synthetic insulation materials.

It s obvious now that insulation would make sense because the feathers were air trapping the result of their research is a way to replace some of the polyurethane foam contained in boards. Physical and morphological structure of chicken feathers keratin biofiber in natural chemically and thermally modified forms 888. In its current form the company s product more closely resembles a solid brick of processed feathers. The idea quickly progressed and now alongside fellow students ioannis tzouganatos and ryan robinson they have come up with the perfect mix of chicken feathers and foam which is sound absorbent lightweight water repulsive flame retardant and pest resistant.

In the age of bio design it s important to rethink the way we use waste. Birds survive in sub zero weather by fluffing their feathers creating layers of air and feathers. Aeropowder is an environmentally friendly insulation material made using old chicken feathers. A b figure 3.

Micrograph of the secondary and tertiary struc ture of the chicken feather showing barbs and barbules 1. A α helix and b β pleated sheet structure 5. Raw chicken feathers directly from a processing plant were washed with detergent and dried. Just a fraction of an inch of this insulation can keep a bird s body temperature at 104 degrees even in freezing weather.

One type of green insulation that you won t find in the united states yet is called industrial hemp which is a type of low narcotic hemp. After the lightbulb moment masters student elena dieckmann ordered 10kg of chicken feathers and began to experiment using them as insulation in the home. A fibrous material suitable for further textile processing and a residue containing large feathers and pieces of quill. Seen here are the feathers of a brown pelican.