Color-tunable particles through affinity interactions between water-insoluble protein and soluble dyes

This research is focused on the delivery of color using zein particles as a carrier and contributes to understanding the interactions between colorants and zein. Co-precipitation of purified zein protein with anionic dyes such as sulfonate group containing azo-dyes (patent blue sodium salt, azorubine, and fast green FCF) are used to prepare red, green, and blue colored nanoparticles. These dyes had electrostatic interactions with zein and they remained bound in the zein particles even after dialysis. This was not the case for purpurin, for with hydrogen bonding was expected as interaction. Upon increasing dye concentration, the particle sizes increased as a result of a change in the kinetics of precipitation, which was affected by the association between zein and the dye. However, the encapsulation efficiency continued to be very high and no plateau was reached for the used concentrations. The post-addition of dye on undyed zein particles was used to confirm that there is indeed a high affinity between the dye and the protein. The amount of free dye was determined and the affinity was again found to be high (dye adsorption <95%). The amount of dye incorporated into the particles and the resulting color were similar using both techniques. These results show that there is a high affinity between the zein protein and the dye, and may be exploited to produce bio-based and optically-functionalized nanoparticles using zein as a carrier.