CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The effect of the addition of starch nanocrystals e prepared fromwaxy and normal maize starch granulese to amaranth protein formulations on the physicochemical and structural properties of the resultingnanocomposite films was studied. All nanocomposites films were homogeneous, translucent and hadsimilar thickness and optical properties than the neat protein film due to the good dispersion of thenanoreinforcements in the protein matrix and the good chemical affinity between both components.Nevertheless, the presence of nanocrystals affected differently the way in which protein matrix stabilized,according to the origin of the reinforcement: mainly by disulfide bonds for waxy maize nanocrystalsand by hydrogen bonds for normal maize nanocrystals. This induced a different reinforcing effectfor amaranth protein films, being more significant for normal maize nanocrystals that however presented a lower crystallinity. Moreover, nanocomposite films presented improved water vapor permeability(WVP), water uptake (WU), surface hydrophobicity and mechanical behavior than proteins filmsand also a delay in their weight loss in soil.