ScalePlantProt · Understanding phase behaviour in plant proteins for large scale production of films and microcapsules

Understanding phase behaviour in plant proteins for large scale production of films and microcapsules

This project aimed to investigate a novel way to process plant-based proteins into functional materials, such as microcapsules and packaging films. Plant-based proteins are natural polymers that can be obtained from renewable biomass sources, such as leguminous crop residues, making them a promising candidate for replacing petroleum-based plastics. In particular, proteins have a unique ability to form various structures at molecular level, including highly crystalline beta-sheets and amorphous random coil. This offers various physical properties that are not available in other biopolymers. However, many commercial plant-based proteins are denatured and aggregated largely during the extraction process, making them highly crystalline with high amount of beta-sheet structure. This leads to their poor solubility in water, and thus it is challenging to process them into functional materials. As a result, current approaches are often limited to a laboratory scale. This research aimed to address this issue by investigating interaction between plant-based proteins and various solvents. Protein-solvent interaction is a core for the formation of various protein secondary structures. Controlling protein-solvent interactions and tuning protein-protein interactions opens new route for processing these proteins into materials. Such approach has a potential to enable thermoplastic processing of plant-based proteins, where polymeric materials are melted at high temperature and solidified into a shape upon cooling down. Thermoplastic processing is a particularly scalable approach and commonly used in industry to process petroleum-based polymers, thereby this will help us scale up the generation of plant-based protein materials and introduce a new sustainable plastic alternative into our society. This part was explored in WP1 and WP2 in this project. Furthermore, this research aimed to utilize the knowledge on solubility of plant-based proteins in various solvents to encapsulate hydrophobic ingredients by a protein shell. By improving the dissolution of plant proteins in solvents, a range of phase behaviours can be explored. Having access to these phases behaviours allows us to use more efficient and benign encapsulation techniques instead of traditional spray-drying methods. With such improved functionality and performance, these microcapsules can offer alternative solutions to the petroleum-based microcapsules widely used in personal and homecare products. This part was explored in WP3 and WP4.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз