title: Flow behaviour of gellan sol with selected cations.
abstract: An understanding of the flow behaviour of the sols before gel formation is important for developing nutrient enriched gels. The influence of cations like CaCl2 (0.05 and 0.1 %, w/w) and FeSO4 (0.05 and 0.1 %, w/w) on the rheological properties of 1 % gellan sol (w/w) prior to gelling was investigated. The apparent viscosity, reported at a shear-rate of 100 s(-1), indicated that the gellan dispersion without any cation possessed lower values compared to other samples containing different cations. The Cross model provided the best fit (0.97 ≤ r ≤ 0.99, p ≤ 0.01) compared to moderate fitting to power law model (0.94 ≤ r ≤ 0.98). Among the different Cross model parameters, the zero-shear viscosity (ηo) increased with the addition of CaCl2 and FeSO4, and with an increase in their concentrations. Zero-shear viscosity values were 0.46 Pas for gellan sol, 0.79 Pas for gellan with 0.05 % (w/w) CaCl2, 1.41 Pas for gellan with 0.1 % CaCl2, 3.85 Pas for gellan with 0.05 % FeSO4 and 4.33 Pas for gellan with 0.1 % FeSO4. An increase in cation concentration from 0.05 to 0.10 % (w/w) marginally increased the relaxation time (λ) values indicating the development of more solid characteristics in the sol.
authors.affiliation: Food Engineering Department, Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore, 570020 India.
authors.forename: Shipra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.affiliation: Food Engineering Department, Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore, 570020 India.
authors.forename: Suvendu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bhattacharya
keywords: Gellan gum; Model; Rheology; Sol