RT Journal Article T1 Improvement of mechanical and water absorption properties of plant protein based bioplastics A1 Gómez-Heincke, Diana A1 Martinez García, Inmaculada A1 Stading, Mats A1 Gallegos Montes, Críspulo A1 Partal López, Pedro AB Bioplastics deriving from plant proteins are becoming an increasingly popular source of raw material for plastic products since they are not only biodegradable but renewable resources. However, these bioplastics require improved mechanical and water absorption properties to be suitable for many applications, such as packaging. For this reason, this study considers potato and rice proteins as a new source for the manufacture of bioplastics. The proteins were mixed with different glycerol concentrations followed by thermomoulding at temperatures from 60 to 180 ºC. The resulting bioplastic is characterized in terms of thermo-mechanical properties, water absorption and molecular weight distribution. Compared towell-known wheat gluten, these bioplastics required higher temperatures for their thermomoulding. However, both of them were more structured materials and exhibited less water absorption (e.g. as low as 9 wt.%) than those obtained for wheat gluten blend. Potato protein-based bioplastics showed complex modulus values comparable to synthetic polymers such as Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE). PB Elsevier SN 0268-005X SN 1873-7137 (electrónico) YR 2017 FD 2017-06 LK https://hdl.handle.net/10272/25171 UL https://hdl.handle.net/10272/25171 LA eng NO Gómez-Heincke, D., Martínez, I., Stading, M., Gallegos, C., & Partal, P. (2017). Improvement of mechanical and water absorption properties of plant protein based bioplastics. In Food Hydrocolloids (Vol. 73, pp. 21–29). Elsevier BV. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodhyd.2017.06.022 NO This work is part of a research project sponsored by the “Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad” (Ref. MAT2011-29275-C0201). The authors gratefully acknowledge its financial support. DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva RD 30 may 2026