Chicken feathers are a major source of food industry waste, but their keratin may be an alternative to hydrogen fuel cells' 'forever chemicals.'

Chicken feathers, much like human hair and fingernails, are composed mostly of a tough protein called keratin. And like with your own hair and nails, the birds produce a lot of feathers over the course of their lives. Generally speaking, this isn’t a big issue—but it’s another matter for the food industry. Each year, approximately 40 million metric tons of chicken feathers are incinerated during the poultry production process, releasing harmful fumes like carbon and sulfur dioxide. Finding a new use for all those feathers could dramatically cut down on food waste and pollution, and a team of researchers may have figured out what to do with them: turn feathers into a vital component of green hydrogen fuel cells. ....