Preparation and characterization of films based on mesoporous silica and zein

In this work, films casted from dispersions of zein nanoparticles and mesoporous silica nanoparticles (ZN-MSN films) were prepared and characterized for mechanical, optical and water barrier properties, and were benchmarked against films obtained only from zein nanoparticles dispersions (ZN films). The initial experimental results showed that the ZN-MSN films have comparable, if not improved, characteristics to the pure zein films, which is encouraging toward constructing smart biocompatible composite materials for packaging and coating applications.