Open Access

ARTICLE

Peroxide Treatment of Soy Protein Fibers Followed by Grafting of Poly(methyl acrylate) and Copolymers

Pushpa Bhardwaj¹, Susheel Kalia^2,3,*, Amit Kumar¹, Hemant Mittal⁴

1 Department of Chemistry, Shoolini University, Bajhol – 173 229, Dist. Solan (H.P.) India
2 Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering, University of Bologna, via Terracini 28, 40131, Bologna, Italy
3 Department of Chemistry, Bahra University, Waknaghat – 173 234, Dist. Solan (H.P.) India
4 Department of Applied Chemistry, University of Johannesburg, Doorfontein - 20280 Johannesburg, South Africa

* Corresponding Authors: ;

Journal of Renewable Materials 2013, 1(4), 302-310. https://doi.org/10.7569/JRM.2013.634123

Received 25 July 2013; Accepted 26 August 2013;

Abstract

The objective of the present study is to elucidate the effect of peroxide treatment and graft copolymerization on water absorption behavior of soy protein fi bers in order to make them suitable as a reinforcing material. Grafting of poly(methyl acrylate) and copolymers was successfully carried out on peroxide-treated soy protein fi bers. Different reaction parameters were optimized in order to get maximum percentage grafting. The grafted fi bers were evaluated for water absorption behavior in deionized water. Maximum grafting has been found at 0.219 mol/l of methyl acrylate, 0.0096:0.145 mol/l of FAS:H₂O₂ , 323 K, and 90minutes. Graft copolymerization results in remarkable changes in morphology of soy protein fi bers. The FT-IR spectrum confi rms the graft copolymerization of methyl acrylate and binary monomer mixture onto soy protein fi bers. Grafted soy protein fi bers showed minimum water absorption as compared to original and peroxide-treated soy protein fi bers because active sites were blocked due to grafting of poly(methyl acrylate) and other copolymers.

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Keywords

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