International Journal of Chemical Sciences Research | Vol 16 Iss 3 DOI: 10.21767/0972-768X.1000282 Citation: Tesfaye T, Sithole B, Ramjugernath D. Valorisation of Waste Chicken Feathers: Green Oil Sorbent. Int J Chem Sci. 2018;16(3):282 © 2018 Trade Science Inc. 1 Valorisation of Waste Chicken Feathers: Green Oil Sorbent Tamrat Tesfaye 1, 2* , Bruce Sithole 1, 3 and Deresh Ramjugernath 1 1 Discipline of Chemical Engineering, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa 2 Ethiopian Institute of Textile and Fashion Technology, Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia 3 Biorefinery Industry Development Facility, Natural Resources and the Environment, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Durban, South Africa * Corresponding author: Tamrat Tesfaye, Discipline of Chemical Engineering, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa, Tel: +27(0)31 260 2083; E-mail: tamrat_tsfy@yahoo.com Received: July 20, 2018; Accepted: August 17, 2018; Published: August 21, 2018 Introduction Oil pollution has become one of the most serious threats to the aquatic ecosystem during the last 30 years due to the development of large-scale off-shore petroleum industry, increase in runoff of oil, increase in accidental spills, discharges of fuel from land-based sources, oil drilling accidents and increase in marine oil transportation [1-4]. Major sources of waste oil include petroleum refining, petrochemical plants, vehicle repair garages, metal and steel manufacturing industries, vegetable and animal oils in household’s wastes and abbatoir wastes [5-7]. Large quantities of oils discharged into the ecosystem can cause serious environmental problems, including adverse effects on water quality and aquatic biota, clogging of sewage Abstract The threat of oil pollution increases with the development of large-scale off-shore petroleum industrial activities. Recently, reducing waste materials through reuse has contributed to sustainable manufacturing in many industries. With development of large-scale poultry farming industries, the disposal of large amounts of waste chicken feathers has become a huge problem. Thus, sustainable methods for valorisation of this waste are needed. This paper examines beneficiation of waste chicken feathers via conversion into sorbents for clean-up of oil spills in water bodies to replace conventionally used synthetic adsorbents that are costly. Chicken feathers have a very high capacity for adsorption of liquid oils (up to 16.21 g of oil/g of chicken feather) at fast uptake time (10 min). The removal efficiency of oils in spills increases with increment in contact time with the sorbent. Untreated waste chicken feathers exhibited slow sorption rate for oil due to the presence of grease and other impurities on the surface of feathers. More than 85% of the oil adsorbed by chicken feathers can be recovered. Thus, waste chicken feathers show very attractive and promising adsorption/absorption properties for oil spill clean-up applications to replace polymer-based adsorbents due to their high oil absorption capacities. Both untreated and treated chicken feathers show promising potential for use as oil absorbents. Keywords: Chicken feathers; Oil spill clean-up; Sorption; Oil recovery