Process optimization of protein isolate edible films modified by glow discharge low temperature plasma treatment

Abstract: Soy protein isolate (SPI) is economic renewable material due to its degradability, high safety, special nutritious and healthcare function. It is ideal raw material to prepare edible films. Despite of a strong performance of air resistance and oil resistance, SPI is poor in terms of its mechanical strength and moisture resistance. In order to obtain a high quality SPI edible film in the experimental study, the optimal comprehensive score of edible film was used as the objective. And the total score of edible film depends on the elongation, tensile strength, water vapor permeability, oxygen permeability. Through consulting a large number of the edible film literatures, we found that the low temperature plasma can improve the quality of edible film. Therefore, the treatment of low temperature plasma can improve the mechanical properties, water vapor permeability and oxygen permeability coefficient of SPI film. And the comprehensive score of edible film was affected. In order to narrow the scope of the experiment, the single-factor experiment is conducted to study the influence of plasma treatment time, the pH value of membrane-forming materials and glycerol concentration. After considering the change of elongation, tensile strength, water vapor permeability and oxygen permeability, the range of data suitable for the next experiment is obtained. At this time, we will reduce the pH value to 9-11. At the same time, the amount of added glycerol concentration was determined as 0.015-0.025 g/mL. The experimental range of plasma time was 6-12 min. At this point, the experiment entered the critical moment. That is, we use principal component analysis and the comprehensive score of membership. Principal component analysis of experimental data is performed using SPSS software. Then the results obtained from the main component analysis are summarized. We can get the weight of each factor by combining the characteristic root, the variance contribution rate and the load matrix coefficient. Among them, the weight of elongation is 0.19, the weight of tensile strength is 0.22, the weight of water vapor permeability coefficient is about 0.29, and the weight of oxygen permeability rate is about 0.3. And we can get the comprehensive score of the edible film by the comprehensive score method. By using Design-Expert software to analyze and evaluate the comprehensive score of edible film, we can make a further analysis of the experimental data. Through the analysis of model, the influence degree of various factors on edible membrane is in the following order: pH value > glycerol concentration > plasma treatment time. Under the conditions of plasma processing time of 11.31 min, glycerin concentration of 0.02 g/mL and pH value of 11, the overall physical properties of edible films were the best with a score as high as 0.90, and the elongation, tensile strength, water vapor permeability and oxygen permeability of the edible films were 37.77%, 3.46 MPa, 1.81×10-12 g/(cm·s·Pa) and 1.43×10-5 cm3/(m2·d·Pa) respectively. The edible film was observed by atomic force microscopy and contact angles. The results showed that the edible film treated with low temperature plasma increased the roughness and decreased the contact angle. The plasma effect can effectively improve the mechanical properties and surface wettability of the SPI membrane. The results of this paper can provide the new reference for the development of edible films.