Waterborne acrylic-casein latexes as eco-friendly binders for coatings

Abstract

The use of casein as renewable resource to produce eco-friendly hybrid latexes has an increasing importance in industrial applications especially for high performance waterborne coatings. This work describes the synthesis of hybrid acrylic-casein latexes by emulsion polymerization of acrylic monomers in presence of varied casein concentration, and in absence of emulsifier which is usually a challenge for preparing of stable nanocomposite latexes. The production and microstructure characterization of the casein-acrylic nanoparticles, as well as the properties of the films obtained from the hybrid latexes are here reported. The synthesized acrylic-casein latexes are able to form films with promising properties for a potential application as waterborne bio-based coatings.