Seed2Fiber – Material and technology development for plant protein-based nanofiber materials
- Projektbeginn: 11/2017
- funding program: R&D-Richtlinie des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt
- term: 01.11.2017 – 31.10.2020
Initial position
Nanotechnology is becoming increasingly important in medicine and engineering. An untapped potential for the production of nanofibre materials is provided by by-products of the food industry, which are produced in large quantities and are rich in proteins, meal or press cakes of the vegetable oil production.
In this context, the particularly in recent years highly developed technique of electro-spinning, offers the possibility of processing isolated proteins from plant by-products into nanofibers. Protein-based nanofiber materials have a wide variety of uses and can be adapted at microstructure level for the corresponding application, which is a clear advantage over classical protein films produced by casting and drying processes. In the pharmaceutical industry such materials can be used, for example as substances for vegetable protein nonwovens, with can replace matrixes of animal origin, e.g. gelatine.
Aim
The aim of this project is the development of a technology platform for the production of customizable, protein-based nanofiber materials from renewable and native vegetable raw materials. For selected proteins antiviral, antibacterial and antifungal effects are reported. An electro-spinning technique shall be developed to generate nanofiber materials from the isolated proteins.
Fraunhofer Institute for Microstructure of Materials and Systems IMWS has test facilities for fiber and nonwoven production and will undertake the development work on the processing of the proteins.
Based on the protein extraction, highly purified surface-active proteins will be functionalized and nonwovens will be produced that can bind chemical pollutants, aromatics and microorganisms. By modifying the proteins, active groups at the end of the amino acid chain must be uncovered or coupled. For this purpose, the extraction of high-purity protein fractions from the renewable and domestic raw materials rapeseed, beans and lentils by the variation of process conditions will be investigated.
Results
The project is in progress.
https://ppm-magdeburg.de//files/2016/02/EFRE_rgb_print-768x133.jpg 768w, https://ppm-magdeburg.de//files/2016/02/EFRE_rgb_print-1024x177.jpg 1024w, https://ppm-magdeburg.de//files/2016/02/EFRE_rgb_print.jpg 1433w" alt="EFRE_rgb_print" width="300" height="52" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1250" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none;" />
https://ppm-magdeburg.de//files/2016/02/EFRE_hier.investiert.europa.in_.d.zukunft_4c_print-768x160.jpg 768w, https://ppm-magdeburg.de//files/2016/02/EFRE_hier.investiert.europa.in_.d.zukunft_4c_print-1024x214.jpg 1024w" alt="EFRE_hier.investiert.europa.in.d.zukunft_4c_print" width="300" height="63" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1251" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none;" />