Process of making a gluten-based biodegradable material
OwnerKurtis Zhanginventor
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Abstract
The present invention is directed to a fully biodegradable material based on a plant protein. The present invention is also directed to a process method of making a gluten-based biodegradable material by a water induced flocculation step. A fully hydrated gluten dough with or without an additive or/and a filler formed from the flocculation step, which has low viscoelasticity, is further molded into an article with desired shapes under a low shear stress in a relatively low temperature range. A rigid or flexible biodegradable plastic article is obtained by removing extra water at a temperature lower than decomposition temperature of the gluten.
Claims18
A process for making a gluten-based plastic article comprising, mixing gluten powder with a hydrophilic organic solvent to form a dispersion;
- adding water to the dispersion to adjust concentration of the hydrophilic organic solvent to less than 20% by volume with respect to total volume of a medium including the hydrophilic solvent and water, stirring the dispersion to form a flocculent comprising a hydrated gluten;
- collecting the flocculent by removing the supernatant to obtain a hydrated gluten dough;
- casting or molding the hydrated gluten dough into a desired shape;
- and drying the cast or molded shape at a preset temperature for a preset period of time to fix the cast or molded shape into a plastic product.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.