A Long-Chain Alkylation of Dialdehyde Starch to Improve Its Thermal Stability and Hydrophobicity

Hydrophobic dialdehyde starch (HDAS) was synthesized by dialdehyde starch (DAS) and eighteen-alkyl primary amine as the raw material in DMSO. The effect of the reaction conditions on the yield of HDAS was investigated such as catalyst content, reaction temperature, reaction time, and the in-feed molar ratio of -CHO/-NH2. Moreover, the optimized test parameters were obtained by conducting orthogonal experiment. The molecular structure and the morphology of HDAS were characterized via Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). And the thermal stability and the hydrophobic properties of HDAS were investigated by thermal gravimetric analyzer (TG) and the hydrophobic testing. The results indicate that the yield of HDAS is the highest up to 44.21%, with feed composition 1 : 0.9, reaction temperature 40°C, reaction time 8 h, and acetic acid content 3%. And the introduction of the long-chain alkyl groups into the DAS backbones will ameliorate efficaciously the thermal stability and the hydrophobic properties of DAS, which almost has no effect on the DAS particle size.