Acrylic-casein latexes with potential application as adhesives

AGUZIN, ANA; JERKOVICH JOSÉ; TRUCONE, JULIETA; RONCO, LUDMILA I.; MINARI, ROQUE J.; GUGLIOTTA, LUIS M.

LATIN AMERICAN APPLIED RESEARCH

Universidad Nacional del Sur

Lugar: Bahía Blanca; Año: 2020

0327-0793

The replacement of monomers derived from petro-chemical sources by biopolymers like proteins, to-gether with the development of new materials with improved properties, have an increasing importance in industrial applications. In this context, the synthesis of acrylic-casein hybrid latexes was investigated through a low environmental impact strategy, such as the surfactant-free emulsion polymerization, with the aim of producing new industrial adhesives. Different aspects of the synthesis of hybrid latexes were ad-dressed, such us i) the use of variable content of pro-tein; ii) the control of grafting degree between poly-mers, using native casein (without chemical modifica-tion) or functionalized casein, and iii) the employ-ment of a chain transfer agent to reduce molecular weights of the acrylic polymer. The effect of the ana-lyzed variables on the polymerization kinetics, the degree of compatibility between polymers, and the application properties of the produced latexes as ad-hesives were investigated.