New polymer products derived from soybean oil

Hair care products, bandages and wound capsules are potential applications of new soybean-derived polymers called "Hydrogel", developed by scientists from the Research Service Organization. Agriculture (ARS) in Peoria, Ill., USA deployed.

Chemist Sevim Erhan is testing the new polymer.(Photo: Keith Weller)

Sevim Erhan and Zengshe chemists Liu developed Hydrogels as a biodegradable alternative to the synthetic polymers currently used, including polyacrylic acid and polyacrylamide.

Soybean oil is an abundant, easy-to-use raw material because of its high flexibility and a renewable source, which means that this crop can be grown annually to meet supply. In 2006, American farmers planted 76 million acres of soybean, accounting for about 38% of the world's total oilseed production, according to the researchers.

Sevim Erhan and Zengshe Liu have been studying the Hydrogel Polymer since 1999 as part of the Peoria Center project to explore new, value-added applications for corn, soybean and plant varieties. Other Midwest (central North America). Using a two-step process including ring-opening polymerization and hydrolysis they created a soft yet tough hydrogel polymer that could expand and contract according to changes in temperature and acidity.

Through testing, they observed that this hydrogel compound has a high water absorption capacity. In collaboration with Erhan and Liu, University of Toronto scientists have succeeded in converting this Hydrogel compound into application nanoparticles as a capsule of the breast cancer drug Doxorubicin. In drug release trials, Doxorubicin, transported by nanoparticles, proved to be eight times more toxic to cancer cell lines than using lipid-water solutions.

Soy protein is known to be an allergen, but Erhan did not consider this a problem for the use of nanoparticles as drug transporters. That's because the chemical structure of soybean oil has completely changed when undergoing the two-step process used to make the Hydrogel as mentioned above.