The present disclosure discloses a processing method for intelligent hydrogel from nano-scale starch particles, and belongs to the technical field of nutritional health food. The present disclosure uses dendritic water-soluble starch particles as a skeleton and utilizes a transglycosidation and chain extension-glycan entanglement reaction of glycosyltransferase to obtain an intelligent hydrogel having a spatial reticular structure. The product provided by the present disclosure is an intelligent starch-based hydrogel which has good rehydration capability, biocompatibility, strong gel strength, enzymatic response irreversibility, pH response reversibility, can carry multiple nutritional factors. The hydrogel provided by the present disclosure can protect and control the release of food functional factors, and can be applied to food, biological drug loading, functional materials and the like.

A biodegradable container made from plant-based plastic that holds, in a preferred embodiment, one to two ounces of a gel-like or otherwise viscous liquid for immediate nutrition. Once opened and used, the container can be safely disposed of on the ground where it will be broken down by natural factors like rain over several days.

The invention discloses a method for adsorbing ethylene gas using amorphous granular starch. The method firstly prepares amorphous granular starch, wherein starch slurry is prepared from starch with a ethanol aqueous solution and NaOH solution is added dropwise so as to react at 30 to 35 C. for 20 to 50 minutes; Then the slurry is centrifuged, neutralized with an ethanol hydrochloride solution, washed and dried to obtain the amorphous granular starch. The amorphous granular starch is placed in a high-pressure reactor and ethylene gas is introduced after the reactor is vacuumized to react at 0.8 to 1.5 Mpa and 20 to 30 C. for 15 to 25 h so that starch powder product adsorbing with ethylene is obtained. The test result shows that the content of ethylene in the obtained product can reach more than 30%. The method is simple, highly efficient and cheap for the adsorption process of ethylene, and the product is expected to be widely applied in the field of fruit and vegetable modified atmosphere preservation.

Fiber-containing composites are described that contain woven or non-woven fibers, and a cured binder formed from a binder composition that includes (1) a reducing sugar and (2) a crosslinking agent that includes a first carbon moiety selected from an aldehyde, a ketone, a nitrile, and a nitro group, wherein an -carbon atom having at least one acidic hydrogen is directly bonded to the first carbon moiety. Exemplary reducing sugars include dextrose and exemplary crosslinking agents include glyoxal. Exemplary fiber-containing composites may include fiberglass insulation.

The present invention relates to a method of providing thermal and/or acoustic insulation to a structure, comprising the steps of: providing a substrate which comprises fibres; applying the substrate to the structure; blending the substrate with a binder composition before, during or after application of the substrate to the structure; allowing curing of the binder composition after the substrate and the binder composition have been applied to the structure; wherein the binder composition comprises at least one hydrocolloid. The present invention also relates to an insulated structure obtainable by said method.

A processing system for producing starch based expanded products useful as packing material for shipping, packaging and insulating applications. Generally, two processing steps for forming materials are involved. In a first step, dense pellets or granules are formed from starch and a plasticizing agent, such as a plasticizing polymer, for example, polyvinyl alcohol. The starch in the pellets is generally formed, for example with an extruder, into a thermoplastic or thermosetting form for further processing. The pellets generally have an individual density of at least about 70 lbs./cubic foot and a small size for convenient delivery for the second processing step. The second process step is based on the expanding of the material from an extruder with water as the expansion agent in which the dwell time in the extruder is short. The process is designed such that a less expensive single screw extruder is suitable for extruding the expanded material. The starch based pellets are convenient for shipping closer to the end use location.

The present invention relates to new aqueous curable binder compositions comprising a carbohydrate compound, a first cross linker and a second cross linker different from the first capable of undergoing radical polymerization and possibly a free radical initiator.

Disclosed are a protective starch-based film and its preparation method and application, belonging to the field of food packaging. According to the method for preparing the protective starch-based film, surfaces of zinc oxide nanoparticles are enabled to adsorb tannic acid and iron ions under the action of metal coordination by controlling the pH to obtain metallic polyphenol network coated zinc oxide nanoparticles, dispersion of the obtained nanoparticles is added to a starch gelatinization solution, and a melanin-like precursor is simultaneously added to form mixed liquid; and by controlling the pH of the mixed solution, - stacking, self-polymerization and metal coordination are induced, so that a stable protective starch-based film with a nano-reinforced interpenetrating network structure is formed. The method is simple, green, pollution-free and energy-saving, and the prepared starch-based degradable film has remarkable ultraviolet-shielding, mechanical and antibacterial properties, thus having wide application prospects in the field of food packaging.

A thermoplastic starch composition acquired from compounding a mixture comprises starch-containing agricultural waste in 45 to 70% by weight of total composition that the agricultural waste contains starch content less than 50% in dry weight; thermoplastic synthetic polymer in 25 to 50% by weight of total composition; plasticizer in 1 to 10% by weight of total composition; and coupling agent in 1 to 5% by weight of total composition; wherein the compounding is performed at a first temperature which is higher than room temperature.

A process for manufacturing a tubular film such as an edible casing film or a packaging film. The process includes the steps of providing a preblended powder composition containing a polymer matrix, a plasticizer, and water; feeding the preblended powder composition to an extruder; heating the preblended powder composition to a temperature above 100 degrees Celsius for a sufficient time to fully hydrate the polymer matrix and to convert the powder composition to a flowable mass; and extruding the flowable mass through a tubular die of the extruder to form the tubular film. The tubular film comprises: about 40-75 wt % polymer matrix; about 10-35 wt % plasticizer; and about 10-35 wt % water. The polymer matrix component is fully hydrated under the temperature, pressure and shear conditions inside the extruder, and may have a component which is only fully hydrated at temperatures above about 100 degrees Celsius.