1 research outputs found
New insight into kinetics behavor of the structural formation process in Agar gelation
A time-resolved experimental study on the kinetics and relaxation of the
structural formation process in gelling Agar-water solutions was carried out
using our custom-built torsion resonator. The study was based on measurements
of three naturally cooled solutions with agar concentrations of 0.75%, 1.0% and
2.0% w/w. It was found that the natural-cooling agar gelation process could be
divided into three stages, sol stage (Stage I), gelation zone (Stage II) and
gel stage (Stage III), based on the time/temperature evolutions of the
structural development rate (SDR). An interesting fluctuant decaying behavior
of SDR was observed in Stage II and III, indicative of a sum of multiple
relaxation processes and well described by a multiple-order Gaussisn-like
equation: . More interestingly, the temperature dependences of the fitted
values of Wn in Stage II and Stage III were found to follow the different
Arrhenius laws, with different activation energies of EaII= 39-74 KJ/mol and
EaIII~7.0 KJ/mol. The two different Arrhenius-like behaviors respectively
suggest that dispersions in Stage II be attributed to the relaxation of the
self-assembly of agar molecules or the growth of junction zones en route to
gelation, in which the formation or fission of hydrogen bonding interactions
plays an important role; and that dispersions in Stage III be attributed to the
relaxation dynamics of water released from various size domains close to the
domain of the viscous flow of water during the syneresis process.Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl