The keratinous wastes of the textile industry and poultry slaughterhouses may be used as sources of soluble keratins or hydrolysates. This review presents methods for processing raw keratin-based materials into bioproducts with functional and bioactive properties suitable for biomedical, cosmetic, food, and agricultural applications. Soluble keratin can be obtained by thermal treatment in some organic solvents, reduction, or oxidation...

Application of natural polymers to forming edible films for food applications has been reviewed. Due to the hydrophilic nature of proteins and polysaccharides, films prepared from these polymers are too susceptible to moisture. Modification of them with critically selected a suitable compounds can result in their improved functional properties and making them useful for food packaging.

This work is focused on study of the mechanical and barrier properties of films obtained from potato starch modified with sodium tetrahydroxozincate generated in situ. The results show that the chemical modification of starch improved the water vapor permeability by about 25%, unfortunately decreased the elongation at break by 60%, when compared with unmodified starch films. However, placitization of films with glycerol at a concentration...