The forgotten potential

What is todays topic? Well, this is less clear than with other of my posts. I want to talk about Zein. Never heard about it? Well, before long, I haven’t either. Zein is a type of proteins to be found in corn. Besides the starch, Zein is the largest fraction of polymers in corn. The existence of Zein has been known for about 200 years. So it is no surprise that people did invent methods of extraction and methods of use for Zein. And as you can guess, one possible use is actually for biobased and biodegradable technical products.

Normally in my articles I try to shine a light on the human side of the history of the technical products I describe. But since Zein hides somehow in the shadows of history, so do the people connected to Zein.

While the suggestions to use Zein in technical applications started early in the 20th century, the research really started in the 1930ies. This is in line with other stories I reported about polymers. These years really have been the “golden age” for the polymer inventions. Especially in WWII Zein was used as a replacement for Shellac. Also fibres from Zein were developed. Mixed with other fibres they were marketed as “Vicara”.

But the rather complicated and expensive extraction process never made Zein really commercially unattractive in later years.

For this “peak time” a lot of different names come up, but there is little to “dig up” besides their academic heritage.

But this is what is the reality in most cases with most people. I guess this is even more than a lot of others can claim. One of the developers working with Zein was Oswald Stürken (later Sturken). He was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1892 and immigrated as a young man to New Jersey, USA. There he found the love of Harriet Tiedemann (who was born in the US). He married her in 1923 and together they had two daughters. I also know that he worked first for Resinox Corp and later for the Corn Production Refining Company (which build its first commercial Zein extraction pilot plant in 1938). He died with 54 in 1947. Unfortunately after all this years I wasn’t able to extract more of his life. His motivations and thoughts are not available to inspire me. Since he filed several patents on technical Zein topics, we can assume that this was his passion.

As Oswald life fell in oblivion, the use of Zein kind of went the same way. There are some specialized uses (like pharmaceutical coatings) but not really within the wider plastics market. But this may change in the future. The increased production of corn for fuel production, the optimization of the extraction methods as well as the increasing environmental awareness made this polymer a lot more attractive in recent years.

One of Oswald colleagues (L.C. Swallen) wrote in 1941 the following: “The production of films and fibres from Zein is expected to provide outstanding uses”. Like a wine this sentence has ripened over the last 80 years. Maybe we will see these uses coming in the future. If so, we should remember Oswald as a part of this journey. He deserves it together with all the other unnamed pioneers. Technical innovations are always based upon the work of others we probably never heard about.

For more background on Zein.