Chemical Modification of Soy Flour Protein and its Properties

This work is to examine ways to chemically modify soy proteins flours and analyze the results and determine the adhesive performance. Reaction with acetic anhydride converts amine and hydroxyl groups to amides and esters, respectively that are less polar and can make the adhesive more water resistant.The succinic anhydride reacts with these same groups but the products have terminal carboxylic acid groups that can react with the polyamidoamine-epichlorohydrin (PAE) resin that is used to cross-link the soy adhesives for improving bond strength. The attenuated total reflectance infrared spectroscopy (ATR-IR) is used to examine changes in the soy flour in going from unmodified to acetylated and succinylated state.