Waterborne natural proteins-polymer latexes for film coatings with improved water resistance

MINARI, ROQUE J.; ALLASIA, MARIANA; GUGLIOTTA, LUIS M.

Balatonfüred, Hungría

Conferencia; IV International Conference on Bio-Based Polymers and Composites; 2018

Laboratory of Plastics and Rubber Technology

This work presents the synthesis of protein-polymer latexes containing both casein and zein. The main goal of this proposal is improving water resistance of casein based latexes by incorporating other natural protein highly hydrophobic as zein, through miniemulsion polymerization.The miniemulsion polymerization proved to be an adequate process for obtaining hybridprotein-acrylic latexes containing the hydrophobic protein zein, which generated importantimprovements in water resistance of hybrid films. Also, zein incorporation increasedthe film surface hydrophobicity. On other hand, the employment of MC improved the propertiesof films with respect to native casein, for example increasing the fraction of casein graftedto acrylic polymer and enhancing films mechanical properties (tensile strength, elongation atbreak and hardness) not shown in this abstract.