Abstract:
Vital wheat gluten as agropolymer was preformed into disks via compression molding, the crosslinking process of the disks was investigated by rotorless curemeter, and the disulfide bonds intensity of crosslinking disks was characterized by Raman spectroscopy. According to rubber vulcanization mechanism, the influence of molding temperature, disk thickness and vulcanization temperature on the crosslinking process of wheat gluten was studied. The results showed that disk thickness and molding temperature had very weak effect on reaction rate; and that activation energy of the crosslinking increased with increasing temperature of preforming. With increasing vulcanization temperature of wheat gluten, the rate constant of the crosslinking increased, whereas plateau of vulcanizing curves shortened.