SGER: Investigation of Wheat Gluten as an Industrial Material

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This Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) project aims to develop biobased material for industrial and consumer products. Wheat gluten can be formed into a tough plastic like substance when small quantities of tri-thiols are added. This discovery offers the possibility of developing high performance fibers, foams, and biodegradable composites from renewable resources that are far superior to previous efforts. The important technical innovations will involve controlled reduction of the intramolecular disulfide bonds and subsequent formation of a limited number of intermolecular disulfide bonds. This will greatly enhance the impact strength of the material with only minimal decrease in stiffness and strength. The goal of this project is to develop an engineering material. Therefore, the methods are designed to minimize the cost of the final material by developing a simple process of formulation and processing. The research plan will include efforts to understand the toughening mechanisms and the optimal formulations for the gluten material. Processes to be studied include fiber drawing, supercritical CO2 processing of gluten into foams, electro spinning, and pultrusion, along with rheological studies.If an economical processing route can be invented, a gluten based material may claim a significant share of the 1.2 billion pound per year automotive market for structural plastics currently occupied by sheet molding compound, a non-degradable, and essentially unrecyclable synthetic material. There are numerous other applications in the transportation, recreation, and other industries. Just as important is the known biodegradability of gluten. If a controllable degradation pathway can be invented with work past this initial SGER project, the environmental benefits may become very large. Currently, many plastics are processed with toxic solvents, placing a large but unquantifiable health risk on workers in the industry and on residents living near plastics processing facilities. The long-term goal is to develop an aqueous based processing method using ambient temperature to produce a green material with known lifetime and extraordinary properties.