Since soy-based plastics are extremely versatile and biodegradable, they are ideal for manufacturing disposable containers and packing products. Military and fast-food industries are just two of the areas where this technology may find use. In addition, there is a need to find additional uses for soybeans that increase domestic use and boost corp prices. Our way to achieve both is by developing value-added products, like bioplastics, from the community. The majority of plastic products produced in North America are injection-molded from extruded plastic pellets.
Injection molding is the least time consuming and least expensive molding procedure.
This means that any bioplastic formulation must be amendable to standard processing systems, for the formulation to be adopted. Injection molding poses its own special challenges. This project focused on improving extrusion mixtures from soy protein for injection-molded plastics. Thermal and Theological extrusion properties of soy protein and starch, and their blends with various additives, were studied by differential scanning calorimetry, thermal gravimetric analysis and torque rheology. This research resulted in many processing improvements and contributed to our understanding of ways to modify the mixture.