A Sustainable Role of Keratin Biopolymer in Green Chemistry: A Review

A great deal of environmental concerns, oil price hike, and rapid oil consumption with finite nature of oil reserves in addition to consumer demand is driving research into renewable, biodegradable, inexpensive, and abundantly available biopolymers in material chemistry. Poultry feathers consist of keratin protein with several amino acids especially cysteine as a major component. Keratin is an original raw material that has great potential to be used in the development of novel fibrous composite materials. Being very effective biopolymer, keratin possesses numerous functional properties, bioactivities, and chemical applications in material chemistry, for example, keratin based gels, films, nano/micro-particles, and beads are of paramount importance. Modified keratin also serves as a biosorbent for removing toxic metal ions from water resources on account of exceptionally important role of functional groups for keratin-metal binding. This review focuses on the recent advances of keratin in material chemistry including its significant role as biosorbent in green chemistry.