ISSN:
1662-8985
Source:
Scientific.Net: Materials Science & Technology / Trans Tech Publications Archiv 1984-2008
Topics:
Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Production Engineering, Mining and Metallurgy, Traffic Engineering, Precision Mechanics
Notes:
Corn gluten meal (CGM) has potential as a bioderived polymer for use in compositematerials. Previous work to improve the processability of CGM has focused on the use ofplasticisers including water, polyethylene glycol, glycerol and octanoic acid, however, a commonproblem is that these leach from the material subsequent to processing [1]. It has been raised that acertain degree of denaturation must occur in order to make proteins processable [2]. The currentwork explores the use of aqueous urea as chemical denaturant in processing CGM into abiodegradable polymer material. Consolidated materials were obtained which showed increasedresistance to cracking with higher urea concentration. FTIR analysis revealed that processing CGMwith increased concentrations of aqueous urea resulted in the progressive transformation of theprotein secondary structure from an ordered, clustered conformation to that of extended chains.Aqueous urea is assumed to promote protein-solvent interactions which stabilise the extended chainconformations
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://www.tib-hannover.de/fulltexts/2011/0528/01/40/transtech_doi~10.4028%252Fwww.scientific.net%252FAMR.29-30.181.pdf
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