MODIFICATION OF THE RHEOLOGICAL BEHAVIOUR - Deeb Abu Fara & Basim Abu Jadayel - 2013
MODIFICATION OF THE RHEOLOGICAL BEHAVIOUR - Deeb Abu Fara & Basim Abu Jadayel - 2013
MODIFICATION OF THE RHEOLOGICAL BEHAVIOUR - Deeb Abu Fara & Basim Abu Jadayel - 2013
Abstract
The rheological behaviour of sodium alginate/chitosan blends was examined at several mix-
ture ratios. While both polymers exhibited nearly the same viscosity at low concentrations (1.0
and 2.0 w%), chitosan solutions had higher viscosity and greater deviation from Newtonian be-
haviour at high solution concentrations (3.0-5.0 w%). The viscosity of alginate/chitosan mixtures
was substantially increased. Blends containing predominantly one component were of higher vis-
cosity than blends with approximately equal proportions of both polymers. The viscosity of algi-
nate solutions was strongly affected by the addition of electrolytes, with BaCl2 exerting the great-
est effect on the alginate viscosity and shear thinning behaviour.
Rheological experiments were carried out chitosan solutions was modelled using the two-
in duplicate with an average reproducibili- parameter power-law model, which is the most
ty of ±5%. The average values were used for frequently used model for alginate (MANCINI et
analysis. al., 1996; CLEMENTI et al., 1998; GOMEZ-DIAZ
and NAVAZA, 2004) solutions. It is given by:
2.3 Preparation of solutions
η = mγ⋅ n‑1 (2)
Solutions of alginate and chitosan were pre-
pared based on mass/volume percentage (0.5 where η is the apparent viscosity, m is the con-
– 5.0% w/v) using an electronic balance (MET- sistency coefficient, γ⋅ is the shear rate, and n is
TLER, 200) with a precision of ± 0.1 mg. The al- the flow behaviour index.
ginate was dissolved in distilled water while the As shown in Figs. 1 and 2, the rheological be-
chitosan was prepared in an acidic medium. The haviour of alginate and chitosan can be well de-
chitosan solution was prepared by mixing an ap- scribed by the power law model. The parameters
propriate amount of chitosan into distilled wa- of power-law model obtained by non-linear re-
ter containing 1.0 vol.% acetic acid and stirring gression at different polymer concentrations are
using a magnetic stirrer until the solutes were reported in Table 1.
completely dissolved. Alginate-chitosan (ALG- Referring to Table 1, the chitosan solutions
CS) blends were prepared at various volume ra- displayed greater deviation from Newtonian be-
tios (4:1, 3:2, 2:3, and 1:4) by mixing appropri- haviour (n = 1) than the alginate solutions at
ate volumes of 1.0 wt % alginate and chitosan high concentrations. In addition, the shear thin-
solutions. ning behaviour of chitosan increased with con-
In the crosslinking experiments, 1.0 g of al- centration, while it was nearly constant in the
ginate was dissolved in 80 mL of distilled wa- case of alginate solutions. PAMIES et al. (2010)
ter and various amounts of salt (0.05-0.50 g) observed that the shear thinning effect in algi-
were dissolved in 20 mL of water. The salt so- nate solutions is due to disentanglement of the
lution was added dropwise to the alginate so- polymer chains. Both solutions have compara-
lution to obtain a concentration of 0.05-0.5 g ble viscosity at low concentration, while chitosan
electrolyte/g alginate. solutions had greater viscosity at concentrations
of 4.0 and 5.0 wt %. This is also apparent in the
m values reported in Table 1 and plotted in Fig.
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 3 as a function of concentration, where a signif-