Arun Ghosh

University of Tennessee | UTK · Center for Renewable Carbon

Fibrous proteins such as collagens are important raw materials for the production of new bio‐based or biomimetic materials. A rich source of collagen is found in the extracellular skeletal matrix of marine or sea sponges, an anatomically simple animal species. This abundant source of collagens was explored for its potential to create a hydrogel sui...

Wool fabrics, without any surface treatment, can undergo undesirable and irreversible structural changes of wool fiber during washing under heat and mechanical agitation, leading to high shrinkage of wool garments. The traditional method based on polyamide resin can prevent felting and/or shrinkage of wool textiles, but adversely affect the surface...

Polycaprolactone (PCL) is a non-toxic and slowly biodegradable synthetic polymer, and is used in making biomaterial products such as surgical sutures, scaffolds, fibres and textile mesh for biomedical applications. Compared to materials of biological origin, PCL has no intrinsic biological capability to enhance healing of damaged cells or tissues....

The poultry meat processing industry produces large amounts of feather meal, which is traditionally used as low value plant fertilizer or fish nutrient. A higher value application for feather meal is described in this paper - a thermal blending and compression molding method to create compostable composites out of environmentally friendly materials...

Wool is a naturally occurring composite fiber consisting of keratin and keratin-associated proteins as the key molecular components. The outermost surface of wool comprises a lipid layer that renders the surface hydrophobic, which hinders certain fabric processing steps and moisture management properties of wool fabrics. In this study, Linde Type A...

Food products are susceptible to the growth of pathogenic microbes, such as Escherichia coli. Smart packaging is an effective non-invasive route to reducing food pathogens. Some lactic acid bacteria such as Lactobacillus plantarum inhibit the growth of pathogens. We report here the incorporation of L. plantarum within a starch matrix using sucrose...

Keratins derived from wool and feathers are a source of raw materials for biomaterial use. Such biomaterials are essentially biodegradable polyamides, and offer many favourable features such as biocompatibility in contrast with petro-derived synthetic materials. In the present study, raw wool samples were dissolved in hot ionic liquid (1-butyl-3-me...

A range of hazardous organic and inorganic compounds, and metal ions generated by human and industrial activities leads to serious concerns for environments. Adsorption technologies based on polymeric materials are being used to remove toxic substances from air and wastewater streams. Keratin protein, found abundantly in sheep's wool, human hair an...

Wool is a natural composite material consisting of keratin and keratin‐associated proteins as the key molecular components. During wool product processing, a variety of chemical and enzymatic reagents are used, the side‐effects of which can include the removal of the outside layers of the fiber (cuticle) and damage within the internal protein matri...

Wool is a natural composite fiber, with keratin and keratin-associated proteins as the key molecular components. The outermost surface of wool fibers comprises a hydrophobic lipid layer that can lead to unsatisfactory processing and properties of fabric products. In this study, molecular sieve 5A, a Na+ and Ca2+ exchanged type A zeolite with a 1:1...

Chitosan-like bio-derived polymers possess a number of useful biological properties, but their mechanical and thermal durability needs to be improved to produce performance-driven materials. Inorganic particles are commonly used as fillers to provide reinforcement in polymer matrix. Zeolites are commercially important inorganic materials that are u...

Increasing awareness of environmental issues and associated demand from consumers for non-petrochemical-derived materials has led to a surge of interest in new bio-based materials. Keratins are fibrous proteins with excellent inherent potential for extraction and reconstruction into new biomaterials. This chapter discusses the utilisation of kerati...

Chitosan (N-deacetylated derivative of chitin) was solubilised in different aqueous dicarboxylic acid solutions, including oxalic acid, malonic acid, adipic acid, azelaic acid and also in monocarboxylic acetic acid. These dicarboxylic acid solutions were used with the objective that they not only act as solvents but also enhance material properties...

There is an impetus on development of implantable biomaterials with the characteristics of improved biodegradability, bio-absorbability and wound healing activities. The milk proteins have valuable nutritional and biological properties, which lead to the promotion of quality health. In this study, whey protein isolate or WPI (highly aggregated) and...

The development of performance driven materials from bio-renewable resources requires certain chemical modifications, which maintain the microstructure and inherent characteristics without major alteration and the durability of the final products. In the present study, chitosan (N-deacetylation derivative of chitin) films were generated from an aqu...

The development of advanced materials from biorenewable protein biopolymers requires the generation of more exogenous bonds to maintain the microstructure and durability in the final products. Casein is the main protein of milk, representing about 80% of the total protein. In the present investigation the casein protein was solubilized and/or emuls...

In our previous article, we studied the feasibility of using wood resin in mixture with urea—formaldehyde resin as a binder for the fiberboard composites. In the present article, we have made an attempt to verify the effectiveness of propylene carbonate (PC) as an accelerator on the curing and performance of the composite from the resin mixture. Th...

The effect of propylene carbonate as an accelerator on the mechanical properties and dimensional stability of composites made from wood fibre bonded with 5% wood resin and 5% urea formaldehyde was investigated. The results demonstrated that the mechanical performance of the composite fibreboard cured at a relatively low temperature (e.g. 180 C) cou...

Atomic force microscopic (AFM) studies on the 50/50 blend of silicone rubber and fluororubber based on tetrafluoroethylene-propylene-vinylidene fluoride terpolymer reveal that the morphological features do not undergo appreciable change on 50% replacement of the fluororubber in the blend by its vulcanizate powder of fine particle size (1 mm). On th...

The paper deals widi die evaluation of interfacial shear stress (ISS) between reinforcement fibre (hemp) and polypropylene matrix through single fibre pull-out method and subsequently the critical length of the composite grade hemp fibre has been determined. In the present study the average ISS value of 5.9 MPa was used to determine the critical le...

The paper reports that the processing behavior and physical properties of the blends of silicone rubber and fluororubber based on tetrafluoroethylene/propylene/vinylidene terpolymer. The processing behavior of the fluororubber can be improved on blending with low viscous silicone rubber. The results indicate that the processing behavior, mechanical...

While silicone rubber has a much lower shear viscosity than that of fluororubber, the viscosity of silicone rubber/fluororubber blends is closer to that of silicone rubber. All rubber compositions show pseudoplastic behavior. While the viscosity of a 50/50 silicone rubber/fluororubber blend increases on replacement of the silicone rubber by silicon...

This paper reports the results of Atomic Force Microscopic (AFM) studies on blends of silicone rubber and fluororubber based on tetrafluoroethylene/propylene/vinylidene fluoride terpolymer. The surface morphology of the single component rubbers and their blends and the effect of the blend ratio on the surface morphology were studied using analysis...

The silicone rubber vulcanizate powder (SVP) obtained from silicone rubber by mechanical grinding exists in a highly aggregated state. The particle size distribution of SVP is broad, ranging from 2 µm to 110 µm with an average particle size of 33 µm. X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and Infrared (IR) Spectroscopy studies show that there is no...

Fluororubber vulcanizate powder (FVP) obtained from fluororubber based on tetrafluoroethylene/propylene/vinylidene fluoride terpolymer by mechanical grinding exists in a highly aggregated chain-like structure. X-ray photoelectron spectros-copy (XPS) and infrared (IR) spectroscopy studies show that there are no chemical change on the rubber surface...

This study reports the results of investigations on blends of silicone rubber and fluororubber based on tetrafluoroethylene/propylene/vinylidene fluoride terpolymer and the effects of replacement of silicone rubber and/or fluororubber in their 50/50 blend by the respective vulcanizate powders of known compositions. To simulate the aging condition o...

Dielectric studies show that the blends of silicone rubber and fluororubber based on tetrafluoroethylene/propylene/vinylidene fluoride terpolymer are immiscible. Dielectric loss factor at any temperature increases with increase in concentration of the fluororubber phase in the blend composition. The activation energy of the relaxation of the vinyli...