Development of wet strength additives from wheat gluten

Abstract

Abstract Glyoxal-polyacrylamide (GPA) resin is widely used as a wet strength additive for various paper and paperboard products. However, GPA resin is derived from petrochemicals and contributes to contaminants in the recycling of papers. Wheat gluten is one of the most abundant proteins in nature. This research investigated how to convert gliadin, a key component of wheat gluten, to an effective temporary wet-strength additive. Gliadin was first modified with glycidyltrimethylammonium chloride (GTA) to generate positively charged GTA-gliadin. Further reaction of GTA-gliadin with glyoxal yielded GTA-gliadin-glyoxal resins. Conditions for these two reactions were investigated to maximize the dry and wet strengths of GTA-gliadin-glyoxal-treated paper. At a dosage of 1 wt.%, GTA-gliadin-glyoxal resin was comparable to GPA resin in terms of enhancing the dry and wet strengths of treated paper.