Sustainable Hydrophobic and Moisture-Resistant Coating Derived from Downstream Corn Oil

Abstract

Sustainable coating as a replacement for petroleum-derived materials is highly required for packaging and other applications to reduce the generation of land and ocean pollution. In this study, a novel approach has been introduced to incorporate hydrolyzable silane (−Si–OCH2CH3) groups in the downstream corn oil backbone (one of the coproducts of bioethanol industry) which has been consequently used for the fabrication of hydrophobic and moisture-resistant coating for paper substrate. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images confirmed the uniform coating of the silane-modified epoxidized downstream corn oil (SECO) over the paper. The condensation reaction has taken place with the hydroxyl group of paper and SECO, and as a result, the number of surface hydroxyl group was reduced to make a hydrophobic surface on coated paper with static water contact angle (WCA) of 129.4 ± 1.12°. SECO-coated paper showed almost 67% decrease in specific water vapor transmission rate compared to that of the uncoated filter p...