Wet adhesion properties of oilseed proteins stimulated by chemical and physical interactions and bonding

Abstract

The ecological and public health liabilities related with consuming petroleum resources have inspired the development of sustainable and environmental friendly materials. Plant protein, as a byproduct of oil extraction, has been identified as an economical biomaterial source and has previously demonstrated excellent potential for commercial use. Due to the intrinsic structure, protein-based materials are vulnerable to water and present relatively low wet mechanical properties. The purpose of this study focuses on increasing protein surface hydrophobicity through chemical modifications in order to improve wet mechanical strength. However, most of the water sensitive groups (WSG), such as amine, carboxyl, and hydroxyl groups, are also attributed to adhesion. Therefore, the goal of this research is to reduce water sensitive groups to an optimum level that the modified soy protein presents good wet adhesion and wet mechanical strength. In this research, we proposed two major approaches to reduce WSG: 1). By grafting hydrophobic chemicals onto the WSGs on protein surface; 2). By interacting hydrophobic chemicals with the WSGs. For grafting, undecylenic acid (UA), a castor oil derivative with 11-carbon chain with a carboxyl group at one end and naturally hydrophobic, was used. Carboxyl groups from UA reacted with amine groups from protein and converted amines into ester with hydrophobic chains grafting on protein surface. The successful grafting of UA onto soy protein isolate (SPI) was proved by both Infrared spectroscopy (IR) and ninhydrin test. Wood adhesive made from UA modified soy protein had reached the highest wet strength of 3.30 ± 0.24 MPa with fiber pulled out, which was 65% improvement than control soy protein. Grafting fatty acid chain was verified to improve soy protein water resistance. For interaction approach, soy oil with three fatty acid chains was used to modify soy protein. Soy oil was first modified into waterborne polyurethanes (WPU) to improve its compatibility and reactivity with aqueous protein. The main forces between WPU and protein were hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic interactions, and physical entanglement. Our results showed that WPU not only increased protein surface hydrophobicity with its fatty acid chains but also enhanced the three-dimensional network structure in WPU-SPI adhesives. WPU modification had increased wet adhesion strength up to 3.81 ± 0.34 MPa with fiber pulled out compared with 2.01 ± 0.46 MPa of SPI. Based on IR and thermal behavior changes observed by DSC, it was inferred that a new crosslinking network formed between WPU and SPI. To exam if the UA and WPU technologies developed using soy protein are suitable for other plant proteins, we selected camelina protein because camelina oil has superior functional properties for jet fuels and polymers. Like soy protein, camelina protein is also highly water sensitive. However, simply applied UA and WPU to camelina protein following the same methods used for soy proteins, we did not obtain the same good adhesion results compared to what we achieved with soy protein. After protein structure analysis, we realized that camelina protein is more compact in structure compared to soy protein that made it weak in both dry and wet adhesion strength. Therefore, for camelina protein, we unfolded its compact structure with Polymericamine epichlorohydrine (PAE) first to improve flexible chains with more adhesion groups for future reaction with UA or WPU. PAE with charged groups interacted camelina protein through electrostatic interaction and promoted protein unfolding to increase reactivity within protein subunits and between protein and wood cells. Therefore, the wet adhesion strength of camelina protein was improved from zero to 1.30 ± 0.23 MPa, which met the industrial standard for plywood adhesives in terms of adhesion strength. Then the wet adhesion strength of camelina protein was further improved after applying UA and WPU into the PAE modified camelina protein. In addition, we also found PAE unfolding significantly improved the dry adhesion strength of camelina protein from 2.39 ± 0.52 to 5.39 ± 0.50 MPa with 100% wood failure on two-layer wood test. Camelina meal which is even more economical than camelina protein was studied as wood adhesive. Through a combination of PAE and laccase modification method, the wet adhesion strength of camelina meal was improved as high as 1.04 ± 0.19MPa, which also met industrial standards for plywood adhesives. The results of this study had proven successful modification of oilseed protein to increase water resistance and wet mechanical strength. We have gained in-depth understanding of the relationship between protein structure and wet adhesion strength. The successful modification of plant proteins meeting the industrial needs for bio-adhesives will promote the development of eco-friendly and sustainable materials.