Protein-based Packaging Films, Sheets and Composites: Process Development and Functional Properties

The depletion of the petroleum resources and a number of environmental concerns led to considerable research efforts in the field of biodegradable materials over the last few decades. Of the diverse range of biopolymers, wheat gluten (WG) stands out as an alternative to synthetic plastics in packaging applications due to its attractive combination of flexibility and strength, high gas barrier properties under low humidity conditions and renewability. The availability of raw materials has also been largely increased with an increase in the production of WG as a low-cost surplus material due to increasing demand for ethanol as fuel. In this study, WG was processed into films, sheets and composites using some of the most widely used techniques including solution casting, compression molding, extrusion and injection molding, accompanying process optimizations and characterization of their functional properties. This thesis consists mainly of six parts based on the purpose of the study. The first part addresses the aging and optical properties of the cast film in order to understand the mechanisms and reasons for the time-dependant physical and chemical changes. The films plasticized with glycerol were cast from acidic (pH 4) and basic (pH11) solutions. The film prepared from the pH 11 solution was mechanically more stable upon aging than the pH 4 film, which was initially very ductile but became brittle with time. It was revealed that the protein structure of the pH 4 film was initially less polymerized/aggregated and the polymerization increased during storage but it did not reach the degree of aggregation of the pH 11 film. During aging, the pH 4 film lost more mass than the pH 11 film mainly due to migration of glycerol but also due to some loss of volatile mass. In addition the greater plasticizer loss of the pH 4 film was presumably due to its initial lower degree of protein aggregation/polymerization. Glycerol content did not significantly change the opacity and p
QC 20100708