Creation of Bio-Functional Plastics with Renewable Surfaces

Plastics represent economically valuable materials that exemplify superior durability, simplicity, and biological inertness, making them irreplaceable as packaging materials. The addition of bio-functionality to plastics is an appealing goal that promises numerous benefits and new capabilities. Unfortunately, plastics present multiple challenges for the incorporation of biological components. For example, biological materials are immiscible and incompatible with high molecular weight polymeric plastics due to differences in solubility and a need to overcome differential processing conditions (mild vs high temperature). Here we show that solvent-free protein liquids facilitate increased compatibility with plastics by offering unconventional properties that deviate from natural biomolecules. We leveraged the extreme thermal tolerance and universal solubility of solvent-free protein liquids to incorporate biological activity into inert high molecular weight thermoplastics. In total, we will describe the creation and functionality of antibody based hot melt adhesives, enzymatically active plastics, and bleach-resistant living glues that contain microorganisms.