Audrey Girard, assistant professor of food science, received USDA-NIFA funding for her project Developing biobased plasticizers and processing methods to create edible, sustainable plastic packaging alternatives from proteins through AFRI’s Foundational and Applied Science Program. It was among 24 projects sharing $11.3 million in funding.

Project summary (from CRIS site): More than 8 million metric tons of plastics pollute our world’s waterways each year, with more than half of that coming from food-related sources. Sustainable, biodegradable food packaging alternatives are urgently needed. Recently, protein films have become a promising plastic alternative for food packaging. An integral part of their manufacturing is the addition of plasticizers, to both enhance films’ flexibility and ensure cohesive, coherent film structures. Glycerol, as the most widely used plasticizer, is highly effective; however, it reduces film tensile strength and readily migrates out of the protein matrix since it is not tightly bound to proteins. Phenolic compounds are potential alternative bioplasticizers that can modify and plasticize film structure. That said, most research into phenolic compounds in films has focused on their ability to create active packaging, i.e., for their antimicrobial, antibacterial, or antioxidative properties. Further, methods to solubilize proteins and facilitate their interactions with phenolic compounds are needed. Our central hypothesis is that coupling the plasticizing effects of phenolic compounds with the protein solubilizing and intermolecular bond breaking of formic acid will enhance protein film properties and produce edible, compostable films. We will test this hypothesis in two main objectives: (1) Characterize effects of naturally occurring bioplasticizers on protein film properties and their interaction mechanisms, and (2) Identify effects of solvents and thermal processing on protein and bioplasticizer stability and resultant film properties. Ultimately, we aim to develop methods that facilitate interactions between proteins and phenolic compounds and produce edible, compostable films as sustainable plastic alternatives for food packaging.