Abstract: According to incomplete statistics, more than 7 million tons of feather and hair are abandoned every year, which not only waste resources, but also pollute the environment. Feather and hair contain 95% keratin. Keratin is a non-flammable and hydrophilic natural polymer material with complex molecular structure. Keratin is renewable, biodegradable, biocompatible, non-toxic and harmless. Therefore, the use of discarded feather and hair as raw material, the development of new keratin-based biological functional materials, broadening the application of keratin, is conducive to the high value conversion of discarded feather and hair, in line with the strategic direction of sustainable development. Keratin is divided into hard keratin and soft keratin according to different fibrillation. Keratin extracted from feather and hair is a kind of hard keratin, which has strong fibrillation. Hard keratin is mainly composed of α-helix structure and contains a lot of cysteine residues. Disulfide bond is the key factor to maintain the structural stability of keratin. Moderate destruction of disulfide bond is the key to the extraction of macromolecule keratin. Due to the large amount of disulfide, hydrogen and hydrophobic interactions in the molecular structure of keratin, the solubility of keratin in many common solvents (water, dilute acid, dilute alkali, etc.) is low. At present, the research and development of keratin-based biological functional materials mainly focuses on four aspects: (1) Keratin has good biocompatibility and bioactivity. It has the potential of autotransplantation too. It has been successfully used in the development of biomembranes, medical scaffolds and wound dressings. (2) It has become a research focus in biomedical and agricultural fields to develop the keratin based drug carriers with strong controllability and effectively improve the utilization rate of drug molecules.(3) There are a large number of functional groups such as carboxyl, amino and hydroxyl groups in keratin molecule. Keratin has excellent emulsifying performance. The modification of fabric fiber by keratin can effectively improve permeability of fabric. There are a lot of active groups in the molecular structure of keratin, which can complex reactions with heavy metal ions, and then the heavy metal ions are fixed in its network structure. Therefore, keratin based adsorbing materials have unique significance in the field of “three wastes” treatment. Firstly, the quaternary structure and extraction method of keratin are introduced. Then, the research status of keratin as a biomembrane, medical wound dressing, drug carrier, fabric finishing agent and adsorption material is described. Finally, the future research direction of keratin based biomaterials is pointed out. It is expected to provide reference for the development of keratin-based biomaterials with unique functions.
王瑞瑞. 角蛋白基生物功能材料的研究现状与发展前景[J]. 材料导报, 2020, 34(21): 21199-21204.
WANG Ruirui. Research Status and Development Prospects of Keratin-based Biofunctional Materials. Materials Reports, 2020, 34(21): 21199-21204.