Mechanically Activated Starch Reticular Nanostructure Traps Ferulic Acid as a Structural and Functional Cargo.

Authors

Siyu Yao, Haohao Hu, Yushi Li, Qingqing Zhu, Huan Cheng, Mingming Guo, Donghong Liu, Enbo Xu

Published in

Biomacromolecules. May 12, 2025. Epub May 12, 2025.

Abstract

Upon the scalable utilization of polyphenols, the design of their composites with polymers has received a great deal of attention. However, the starch polymer has a weak loading of hydrophobic polyphenols typically through noncovalent interactions without biochemical catalysts. Here, we tailor a reticular starch nanostructure from a starch nanosphere precursor (preSNS) that traps ferulic acid (FA) via esterification. The preSNS-FA network is activated by a green physical method via dynamic high-pressure microfluidization, exhibiting an exceptionally higher content of FA (∼38.0%) compared with the conventional starch group (only ∼1.5%). SEM, FTIR, XRD, 13C NMR, 1H NMR, and XPS results as well as molecular dynamics simulation comprehensively confirm the changes in architecture and hydrogen bonding modes with the formation of -COOR-. The preSNS-FA network also has an enzymatic hydrolysis resistance (up to 83.8%). Collectively, this work establishes a high-performance and catalyst-free synthetic route toward an esterified polyphenol complex network with potential applications in nutrient delivery, food packaging, and agriculture fields.

PMID:
40355847
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 13 May 2025.

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