Acetylation of Castor Meal and Castor Proteins for Thermoplastic Applications
2018
Hu, Chunyan | Nataraj, Divya | Reddy, Narendra
Castor meal and proteins extracted from the castor meal have been acetylated and made into thermoplastics. Castor meal is generated as the byproduct after extraction of oil from the seeds and hence available in large volumes at low cost. The meal is also non-thermoplastic making it difficult to use for industrial applications. In this research, castor meal (CM) and castor proteins (CP) extracted from the castor meal were acetylated under alkaline conditions in order to make them thermoplastic. The acetylated products were characterized using FT-IR, P-GC-MS and DSC. The effects of various acetylation conditions on % acetyl content were studied. The highest % acetyl content obtained in the case of CM was 11.63% for a material to anhydride ratio of 1:5 at 130 °C and for CP a higher acetylation of 23.60% was obtained using a ratio of 1:5 at 120 °C. It was found that that acetylated CP could be compression molded into films.
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