SGER: Investigation of Wheat Gluten as an Industrial Material

这个小型探索性研究奖助金(SGER)项目旨在开发用于工业和消费品的生物基材料。当添加少量的三硫醇时，小麦面筋蛋白可以形成一种坚韧的塑料状物质。这一发现提供了从可再生资源中开发高性能纤维、泡沫和可生物降解复合材料的可能性，这些资源远远优于以前的努力。重要的技术创新将包括分子内二硫键的受控还原和随后有限数量的分子间二硫键的形成。这将大大提高材料的冲击强度，而刚度和强度只会有很小的下降。这个项目的目标是开发一种工程材料。因此，这些方法旨在通过开发一种简单的配方和加工过程来最大限度地降低最终材料的成本。研究计划将包括努力了解面筋材料的增韧机理和最佳配方。将要研究的工艺包括纤维拉伸、超临界二氧化碳将面筋加工成泡沫、静电纺丝、拉挤以及流变学研究。如果能发明出一种经济的加工路线，面筋材料可能会在目前由片状模塑化合物占据的12亿磅结构塑料汽车市场上占据相当大的份额。片状模塑化合物是一种不可降解且基本上不可回收的合成材料。在交通、娱乐和其他行业中还有许多其他应用。同样重要的是已知面筋的生物降解性。如果通过这个最初的SGER项目，能够发明一条可控的降解途径，环境效益可能会变得非常大。目前，许多塑料都是用有毒溶剂加工的，这给该行业的工人和居住在塑料加工设施附近的居民带来了巨大但无法量化的健康风险。其长期目标是开发一种基于水的加工方法，利用环境温度来生产具有已知寿命和非凡性能的绿色材料。

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.