Study on effective extraction of keratin from human hair wastes

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study is to extract keratin from human hair waste by alkali-reduction method. The properties of keratin were analyzed by the tests of SEM and FTIR. The result shows that the extraction rate of keratin was 75.3%. Furthermore, FTIR shows that the molecular structure of keratin was transformed from α–helix to β–sheet in the process of extraction.