Title: Mechanical Properties of Functionalized Carbon Dot Nanoparticles Reinforced Soy Protein Isolate Films

Abstract:

Synthetic plastic based wastes are predominant in our society. To overcome the problems posed by synthetic plastic based wastes, Government organizations as well as research institutions around the world are focusing on fabrication of bioplastics from renewable resources. Soy protein isolate (SPI) is an important biopolymer from which bioplastics or biofilms can be easily prepared either by solution casting or compression molding methods (1). Eighteen amino acids constitute SPI based biopolymer and the presence of these amino acids imparts different properties depending on hydrophobic or hydrophilic based functional groups of their side chain. Several nanoparticles such as MMT, CNTs and carbon nanoparticles have been incorporated in SPI to increase the material properties of SPI based plastics (2-4). In this work, CPI (citric acid poly ethylene imide carbon dot) and 0.05 to 0.2% CCG (citric acid glycine carbon dot) have been incorporated in SPI. Glycerol plasticized SPI films at different contents (0.1 to 0.5%w/w w.r.t SPI) of CPI and (0.1 to 0.5% w/w w.r.t SPI) of CCG were fabricated. CCG and CPI incorporated SPI films were subjected to FT-IR studies for structural characterization in addition to mechanical properties and water uptake tests. There is generation of peak at 1728 cm^-1 after incorporation of 0.15 and 0.2 % of CCG in SPI as compared to neat SPI. Mechanical properties results indicated tensile strength of 7.8 MPa and 7.6 MPa for 0.5% CPI and 0.15% CCG incorporated SPI films, respectively as compared to tensile strength of 5.88 MPa for neat SPI films. Elongation at break was found to be lowest i.e., 7.3% for 0.15% CCG incorporated SPI as compared to SPI films incorporated at all the contents of CPI and CCG.. Interestingly, the water uptake of CCG and CPI incorporated SPI films were ~36% as compared to water uptake of ~158% for neat SPI films. This may be attributed to interactions between functionalized groups of CCG or CPI nanoparticles with amino or carboxyl functional groups of SPI. CCG and CPI incorporated SPI films were also subjected to antimicrobial tests. This work gives an idea to fabricate functionalized carbon dot nanoparticles with reasonable mechanical properties and low water uptake.

Biography:

Dr Rakesh Kumar is an Associate Professor in Department of Biotechnology, Central University of South Bihar, India. Rakesh Kumar has got his postdoctoral training from Wuhan University, China. He obtained his Ph.D degree in Biopolymers from IIT Delhi, India in the year 2006. In Dec. 2008, he joined as a Senior Researcher at Material Science and Manufacturing Unit, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Dr Kumar focuses his research on soy protein isolate, polylactic acid and polyfurfuryl alchol based biopolymers and biocomposites. All these three biopolymers are obtained from renewable resources. Dr. Kumar has published more than 40 original research papers in the peer-reviewed SCI journals, has edited 3 International books. He has delivered several talks at National and International conferences. He was awarded Chinese Patent from his postdoctoral work. CSIR, South Africa has filed South African and World Patent for his innovative work entitled “Polyfurfuryl Alcohol Based Materials”.