Acrylic-casein Latexes with Potential Application as Adhesives

JULIETA TRUCONE; LUIS GUGLIOTTA; ANA AGUZIN; LUDMILA IRENE RONCO; JOSÉ IGNACIO JERKOVICH; ROQUE JAVIER MINARI

LATIN AMERICAN APPLIED RESEARCH

PLAPIQUI(UNS-CONICET)

Lugar: Bahia Blanca; Año: 2020 vol. 50 p. 115 - 120

0327-0793

The replacement of monomers derived from petrochemical sources by biopolymers like pro-teins, together with the development of new materials with improved properties, have an increasing im-portance in industrial applications. In this context, the synthesis of acrylic-casein hybrid latexes was in-vestigated through a low environmental impact strat-egy, such as the surfactant-free emulsion polymeriza-tion, with the aim of producing new industrial adhe-sives. Different aspects of the synthesis of hybrid la-texes were addressed, such us i) the use of variable content of protein; ii) the control of grafting degree between polymers, using native casein (without chem-ical modification) or functionalized casein, and iii) the employment of a chain transfer agent to reduce mo-lecular weights of the acrylic polymer. The effect of the analyzed variables on the polymerization kinetics, the degree of compatibility between polymers, and the application properties of the produced latexes as ad-hesives were investigated.