Highly porous flame-retardant and sustainable biofoams based on wheat gluten and in situ polymerized silica

This article presents a novel type of flame-retardant biohybrid foam with good insulation properties based on wheat gluten and silica, the latter polymerized in situ from hydrolysed tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS). This led to the formation of intimately mixed wheat gluten and silica phases, where, according to protein solubility measurements and infrared spectroscopy, the presence of silica had prohibited full aggregation of the proteins.

The foams with "built-in" flame-retardant properties had thermal insulation properties similar to those of common petroleum- and mineral-based insulation materials. The foams, with a porosity of 87 to 91%, were obtained by freeze-drying the liquid mixture. Their internal structure consisted of mainly open cells between 2 and 144 μm in diameter depending on the foam formulation, as revealed by mercury intrusion porosimetry and scanning electron microscopy.

The foams prepared with ≥30% TEOS showed excellent fire-retardant properties and fulfilled the criteria of the best class according to UL94 fire testing standard. With increasing silica content, the foams became more brittle, which was prevented by cross-linking the materials (using gluteraldehyde) in combination with a vacuum treatment to remove the largest air bubbles.

X-ray photoelectron and infrared spectroscopy showed that silicon was present mainly as SiO2.