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Tensile Properties of Extruded Corn Protein Low-Density Polyethylene Films¹

¹This work was partially funded by Kansas State Agricultural Experiment Station, contribution no 02-53-J. ²Associate professor, Department of Animal Sciences & Industry, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506. ³Corresponding author: Fax: 785-532-5681. E-mail: therald@oznet.ksu.edu ⁴Graduate student, Food Science Graduate Program, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506. ⁵Extrusion specialist, Northern Crops Institute, Fargo, ND 58105-5183. ⁶Assistant professor, Department of Agricultural Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801.

The strength of films extruded from powder blends of corn zein or corn gluten meal (CGM) with low-density polyethylene was investigated. Tensile strength, percent elongation at break, and elastic modulus of the extruded films were measured. The tensile strength decreased from 13 MPa to ≈10.5 MPa with zein addition, while CGM addition resulted in tensile strength of ≈6 MPa. The higher the level of biological material (CGM or zein) in the films the lower the tensile properties. Films containing CGM exhibited significantly lower tensile properties than those containing zein. Extrusion processing of biological films is a step toward commercial viability.