New approach for characterization of gelatin biopolymer films using proton behavior determined by low field 1H NMR spectrometry.

The behavior of protons in biopolymer films (BFs) formed with gelatin, water, and glycerol was investigated at various relative humidities (RHs) and concentrations of glycerol using a low field 1H NMR spectrometer. At a RH of approximately 0%, the distributed spin-spin relaxation times (T2) of protons in BFs showed two components: a rapidly relaxing proton with the shortest T2 derived from protons in the rigid backbone of the gelatin polymer such as CH1-, CH2-, and CH3-, and a slowly relaxing component with longer T2 from protons of the functional groups in amino acid residues in gelatin such as -OH, -COOH, and -NH3. These two components are referred to as nonexchangeable (T2N) and exchangeable protons (T2E), respectively, indicating the different mobility of the protons. The T2E increased as RH increased indicating the increase in relative mobility of protons due to the larger free volume in the BF matrix. Above a RH of 33%, the slowest relaxing component was found in all BFs and referred to as hydration-water protons (T2W) with the highest relative mobility of all protons in the films. It suggests that the free volume in BFs can be formed above a RH of 33% in the absence of glycerol. The behaviors of T2N, T2E, and T2W reveal the formation of free volume in the BF matrix associated with the presence of plasticizers (water and glycerol). The T2 behavior in BFs is consistent with the behavior of spin-lattice relaxation (T1). Our result is the first attempt to characterize using low field 1H NMR technology how all protons in a film matrix behave and to develop correlations between proton mobility and free volume in protein-based BFs plasticized with water and glycerol.