Thermo-molded wheat gluten plastics plasticized with glycerol: Effect of molding temperature

The present work aims to study the influence of molding temperature on the properties of thermo-molded biodegradable wheat gluten plastics plasticized with glycerol. Moisture absorption, tensile properties (tensile strength and elongation at break), crosslinking density and stress relaxation were evaluated in relation to the molding temperatures. Dynamic mechanical analysis was conducted for further revealing the effect of molding temperature on the structure of the protein network. Increasing molding temperature from 25 to 125 °C significantly improves crosslinking density of the three-dimensional protein network through disulfide bonding, thus leading to increases in tensile strength, Young's modulus and relaxation time.