Abstract

Three different charcoals (gluten char, pine bark char and carbon black) were used to rectify certain property disadvantages of wheat gluten plastic. Pyrolysis process of gluten was investigated by analysing the compounds released at different stages. Nanoindentation tests revealed that the gluten char had the highest hardness (ca. 0.5 GPa) and modulus (7.8 GPa) followed by pine bark char and carbon black. The addition of chars to gluten enhanced the indenter-modulus significantly. Among all the charcoals, gluten char was found to impart the best mechanical and water resistant properties. The addition of only 6 wt% gluten char to the protein caused a substantial reduction in water uptake (by 38%) and increase of indenter-modulus (by 1525%). It was shown that it is possible to obtain protein biocomposites where both the filler and the matrix are naturally sourced from the same material, in this case, yielding an all-gluten derived biocomposite.

Keywords

Biocomposite; Polymer-matrix composites (PMCs); Hardness (Nominated) Biochar

Published in

Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing
2019, Volume: 120, pages: 42-48

SLU Authors

• Johansson, Eva

  • Department of Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Capezza, Antonio José

  • Department of Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)

UKÄ Subject classification

Polymer Technologies


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesa.2019.02.015

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/99182