Study on Wheat Gluten Biopolymer: a Novel Way to Eradicate Plastic Waste

Abstract

The nonrenewable sources are limited and environmental concerns are increasing regarding the waste from plastics. Hence biodegradable materials made from renewable agricultural resources such as carbohydrates, starch, proteins are attracting much attention for sustainable development and environmental conservation. Plant proteins from wheat show the advantage for usage as films and plastics because of their abundant resources, low cost, good biodegradability and suitable properties like rheological, water sensitivity, sound absorption, thermal behaviour etc. An extensive review of the existing literature reveals that wheat gluten (WG) based bioplastics are non toxics and fully biodegradable, hence in this review various plasticizers and cross-linking agents have been looked upon and their effect on properties studied. Thus, WG based biopolymer poses to be a promising substitute to petroleum based plastics.