Grafting of methyl methacrylate onto natural keratin

Abstract

Keratin fibers from chicken feathers were modified through graft copolymerization with methyl methacrylate in an aqueous medium, using a KMnO4/malic acid redox system. Original and grafted fibers were characterized by IR and Raman spectroscopy and their thermal behavior was studied by both differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetric analysis. The grafted fiber surface was characterized by scanning electron microscopy. The characterization results show that grafting was effectively achieved and this was confirmed by a ninhydrin test after acidic hydrolysis of the grafted keratin.