Upgrading keratin to make a biodegradable plastic

A team of materials scientists from Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, the University of Milano-Bicocca, and Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia via Morego, all in Italy, has found a way to use keratin to make a type of biodegradable plastic. In their paper published in the journal Matter, the group describes how they combined two well-known keratin processing techniques to make a new kind of bioplastic and outline possible uses for the result.