The control of the rheological properties
of carrageenan
gels from
hierarchical structure design is very important for food and biotechnological
applications. In this study, the viscoelastic properties from linear
to nonlinear regimes and temperature-dependent spatiotemporal hierarchical
structure of κ-(KC), ι-(IC) carrageenan gels, and their
mixtures (KCIC) were investigated using dynamic rheology, small-angle
neutron scattering (SANS), dynamic light scattering (DLS), and pulsed
nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The nonlinear viscoelastic measurement
revealed the characteristic signature of the KC and IC gels under
large-amplitude oscillatory shear (LAOS), where IC showed a characteristic
strain-stiffening and broke at large strain amplitude, while KC did
not show a strain-stiffening and broke at small strain amplitude.
The difference in the LAOS response was corroborated by the difference
in the spatial and temporal hierarchical structures of the gels. The
characteristic cross-sectional size of the aggregates, R
g, of carrageenan gels measured by SANS confirmed that
KC formed large bundles of rigid aggregates due to the extensive aggregation
of KC during gelation. Furthermore, the temporal dynamics of the aggregates
were resolved by pulsed NMR, demonstrating that IC gels formed loose
aggregates in contrast to highly packed KC aggregates. Meanwhile,
DLS revealed that KC formed a completely frozen network structure.
Therefore, based on the collective understanding of carrageenan gels’
spatiotemporal hierarchical network structure, we demonstrate that
the LAOS response of the carrageenan gels corresponds to the size
of the aggregates and the dynamics of the network.