(643c) Significant Enhancements In Bio-Compatibility of a Soy-Polymer Blend Via a Facile Approach

Compatibility among the components is required for an effective polymer blending system. Though soy protein products have great potential to be applied in polymer blends, the poor interaction with polymers such as poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG) limits the broad applications. This study reveals a new facile approach to effectively enhancing the compatibility of SP with PEG by introducing a PE block, i.e. applying a co-polymer, polyethylene-block-poly (ethylene glycol) (PE-b-PEG), mixed with soy protein isolate (SPI) a SP product with 90%, SPI.  This was shown to possess a capability for enhancing the compatibility of PEG/ SPI. In this paper, the polarized optical microscope (POM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), and dielectric spectrum analyses are deployed to analyze the interaction between PEG and SPI. We found that the interaction between PEG and SPI enhanced significantly due to the introduction of the PE block. The strong interaction resulted in a reduction in the crystallinity of the PEG and decrease in the dielectric constant in copolymer/SPI blending. All these results indicate that good compatibility has been achieved by introducing a non-polar hydrophobic block.