A strong, antimildew, and fully bio-based adhesive fabricated by soybean meal and dialdehyde chitosan

It is still a great challenge to develop soybean protein adhesives with high strength and antimildew properties through a sustainable and facile strategy. Herein, water-soluble dialdehyde chitosan (DCS) was obtained by oxidizing chitosan (CS) and used to crosslink soybean meal (SM) to fabricate protein adhesives via the Schiff base reaction. This strategy is simple, all-biomass, and without additional crosslinkers. Owing to the covalent imine bonds and non-covalent hydrogen bonds interactions, the adhesion strength of SM/DCS-4 adhesive reached 1.47 MPa, satisfying the requirement for Type II interior plywood (≥ 0.7 MPa). More importantly, the protein adhesives showed excellent antimildew properties due to the amino and aldehyde groups of DCS and the Schiff base formation. The SM/DCS-4 adhesive exhibited long shelf life (7 d), which is beneficial for industrial applications. This study helps in preparing green and fully bio-based adhesives from agricultural and fishery wastes.