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Dr. Loic Hilliou

Structure-elastic properties relationships in gelling carrageenans: where do we stand?

Short Abstract:

Gelling carrageenans are polysaccharides extracted from the Gigartinales order of red algae. These are additives used in the food industry and more recently in pharmaceutics for texturizing, stabilizing or gelling various formulations. Although a consensual gel mechanism has been reached which encompasses a coil-to-helix transition followed by the self-assembling of helices in a network, the structure-elastic relationships in the network are still to be clearly established. This paper reviews the reports where carrageenan gel structures have been systematically compared with gel elastic properties. The focus is on the sizes documented for structural units such as (double or single) helices, strands, aggregates, voids or network meshes, as well as on the reported linear and nonlinear elastic characteristics. Then the insufficient rationalization of carrageenan gel elasticity by models which take on board mechanically relevant structural features is underlined. After introducing selected linear and nonlinear elastic models, preliminary results comparing such models to structural and reological data are presented, and a roadmap for future studies is proposed

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Short CV:

Loic Hilliou is a member of the Institute for Polymers and Composites ate the University of Minho, Portugal. As a soft matter scientist, his research interests focus on understanding the relationships between products final properties and the structures induced during the processing of materials used to manufacture these products. Keywords which better define his areas of expertise are rheology, rheo-optics, extrusion, in-process monitoring, biopolymers and bioplastics, food packaging, film blowing, hydrogels and nanocomposites.  

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