Protein-based “green” materials

Extensive research has been undertaken in blending different polymers to obtain new products having some of the desired properties of each component. Among protein- and polysaccharide-based green materials, those made from soy protein (Maruthi et al. 2014 Ghidelli et al. 2014 Behera et al. 2012) and starch (Katerinopoulou et al. 2014 Flores-Hemandez et al. 2014) have been extensively studied for and their physiochemical properties been analyzed. The literature review clearly shows that development of biodegradable biopolymer-based materials based on these materials can not only solve the white pollution problem but also ease the overdependence on petroleum resources. This chapter provides a brief overview of the preparation, properties, and application of cellulose fiber-reinforced soy protein-based and starch-based biocomposites. 

Soy protein-based green composites are not only applied as an environmental friendly material in the fields of adhesives (Kumar et al. 2002), plastics (Kumar et al. 2011), and textile fibers (Kobayashi et al. 2014), but also as biodegradable membranes (Mamthi et al. 2014). Furthermore, the nutritional and health benefits of soy protein draw attention to the application in the field of biomedical materials (Silva et al. 2014), such as tissue engineering scaffolds (Chien and Shah 2012),... 

Nakamura, R, Netravali, A.N., Morgan, A.B., Nyden, M.R., Gilman, J.W., 2013. Effect of halloysite nanotubes on mechanical properties and flammability of soy protein based green composites. Fire and Materials 37, 75—90. 

Huang XS, Netravali AN. Environmentally friendly green materials from plant-based resources modification of soy protein using gellan and micro/nano-fibrillated cellulose. J Macromol Sci A Pure Appl Chem 2008 45 899-906. 

Protein-Based Plastics and Composites as Smart Green Materials... 

The first crystals of ascorbate oxidase were grown by Ladenstein et al. (85) in a final 1.2 M sodium-potassium phosphate buffer, pH 7.0. They were orthorhombic, space group P2i2,2i with a = 190.7 k, b = 125.2 A,c = 112.3 A, and two molecules (four subunits) per asymmetric unit. Some years later Bolognesi et al. (86) obtained a different crystal form of ascorbate oxidase with 2-methyl-2,4-pentane-diol as precipitant. The crystals were orthorhombic as well, space group P2j2j2 with a = 106.7 A, b = 105.1 A, c = 113.5 A, and one molecule (two subunits) per asymmetric unit. In both cases, the protein material was prepared from the peels of green zucchini squash (C.pepo medullosa). The preliminary three-dimensional X-ray structure of ascorbate oxidse, based on... 

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