Towards the Design of Adhesives and Binders with Adhesive Ability Programmed Through Morphogenetic Rearrangement of Their Particle Geometry: Transgenic Adhesives and Binders from Genetically Modified Starch Producing Plants
摘要
The literature review in the introduction of this paper provides information on the relationship between the adhesion mechanisms and viscosity, which is in good agreement with the classical works demonstrating the relationship between rheology, adhesion, and surface energy. It is indicated that for sufficiently thick binder layers, in which redistribution of particles and their dense (or not) packing during compression is possible, adhesion itself, as well as friction or compression, can influence the packing geometry in starch-containing dispersed systems of the binder particles. It is underlined that when the particle shapes are not spherical, this simplified model approach has no predictive power. In this regard, it is necessary to take into account the non-spherical particles’ morphology and the size classes of the structures characterized not only by a granulometric diameter/radius but also by a number of additional descriptors, such as elongation, ellipticity, moment of inertia, convexity, etc. It is also necessary to account for the dynamic shape changes of the particles/vesicles or micelles in connection with their rheological behavior and response to the effects of medium, in addition to their static characteristics. Adhesion of the emulsion components and polyelectrolytes can be characteristically related to the particle morphology that determines the rheology of the starch-containing mixtures. At the same time, it is possible to create controllable starch-containing adhesives and binders or adhesives with the adhesive ability that is programmable by rearranging their particle geometry. In addition to the currently known methods of changing the already formed starch granules (ultrasound, pH, chemical treatment and encapsulation), it is also possible to control the starch granule shape in vivo or in situ—at the granule formation stage, using transgenic varieties of the cultivated plants that give programmable size distributions or geometry of the starch granules during cultivation under the programmed environmental conditions. But such granules require a characterization method. In this paper, multiparametric granulometry methods for analyzing the starch granules’ geometry are tested. The compatibility of this approach with modeling of rheological and hydrodynamic characteristics of the adhesive particles is illustrated using an elementary model didactic example.