Characteristics colloidal gels

The gel point is defined as the point at which the entire solid mass becomes interconnected. The physical characteristics of the gel network depends upon the size of particles and extent of cross-linking prior to gelation. Acid-catalysis leads to a more polymeric form of gel with linear chains as intermediates. Base-catalysis yields colloidal gels where gelation occurs by cross-linking of the colloidal particles. 

A strain or stress sweep is used to establish the LVE region (Figure H3.2.4). The LVE region is a characteristic of a material. While the strain value at the limit of LVE rarely exceeds 0.1 for colloidal gels, a larger LVE region with a strain of up to 1 or more is usually observed for biopolymer gels (Clark and Ross-Murphy, 1987). 

Gels are of central importance for most semisolid food products. A gel can contain more than 99% water and still retain the characteristics of a solid. The network structure will determine whether the water will be firmly held or whether the gel will behave more like a sponge, where water is easily squeezed out. The gel structure will also have a major impaet on the texture as well as diffusion of water and soluble compounds. Many food matrixes are based on colloidal gels such as yoghurts, cheeses, many desserts, sausages etc (see also Chapters 19 and 20). In whole foods, there is often a combination of colloidal structures and fragments of biological tissues or gel structures in combination with particles, emulsion and foam structures. This level of complexity of composite food structures will not be dealt with here. 

Generally, the effectiveness of the separation is determined not by the membrane itself, but rather by the formation of a secondary or dynamic membrane caused by interactions of the solutes and particles with the membrane. The buildup of a gel layer on the surface of an ultrafiltration membrane owing to rejection of macromolecules can provide the primary separation characteristics of the membrane. Similarly, with colloidal suspensions, pore blocking and bridging of... 

One characteristic of shear banded flow is the presence of fluctuations in the flow field. Such fluctuations also occur in some glassy colloidal materials at colloid volume fractions close to the glass transition. One such system is the soft gel formed by crowded monodisperse multiarm (122) star 1,4-polybutadienes in decane. Using NMR velocimetry Holmes et al. [23] found evidence for fluctuations in the flow behavior across the gap of a wide gap concentric cylindrical Couette device, in association with a degree of apparent slip at the inner wall. The timescale of these fluctuations appeared to be rapid (with respect to the measurement time per shear rate in the flow curve), in the order of tens to hundreds of milliseconds. As a result, the velocity distributions, measured at different points across the cell, exhibited bimodal behavior, as apparent in Figure 2.8.13. These workers interpreted their data... 

Characteristic microstructural properties of TiOj membranes produced in this way are given in Table 2.5. Mean pore diameters of 4-5 nm were obtained after heat treatment at T < 500°C. The pore size distribution was narrow in this case and the particle size in the membrane layer was about 5 nm. Anderson et al. (1988) discuss sol/gel chemistry and the formation of nonsupported titania membranes using the colloidal suspension synthesis of the type mentioned above. The particle size in the colloidal dispersion increased with the H/Ti ratio from 80 nm (H /Ti = 0.4, minimum gelling volume) to 140 nm (H /Ti " — 1.0). The membranes, thus prepared, had microstructural characteristics similar to those reported in Table 2.5 and are composed mainly of 20 nm anatase particles. Considerable problems were encountered in membrane synthesis with the polymeric gel route. Anderson et al. (1988) report that clear polymeric sols without precipitates could be produced using initial water concentrations up to 16 mole per mole Ti. Transparent gels could be obtained only when the molar ratio of H2O to Ti is < 4. Gels with up to 12 wt.% T1O2 could be produced provided a low pH is used (H /Ti + < 0.025). 

Sols and Gels. The essence of the behavior characteristic of the colloidal state is that double-layer interactions are as significant as bulk interactions. In other words, surface interactions are on a par with volume interactions. This condition can therefore be realized in all systems where the surface-to-volume ratios are high, i.e., at submicroscopic dimensions. 

Lyophobic colloids are known by a variety of terms, depending on the nature of the phases involved. Some of these are listed in Table 1.4. Some of the terms (e.g., aerosol, gel) are somewhat ambiguous, so the reader is warned to make certain that the system is fully understood, particularly when the original literature is consulted. Remember that a common feature of all systems we consider is that some characteristic linear dimension of the dispersed particles falls in the range defined in Section 1.1a. When we deal with two-phase colloids in this book, we are primarily concerned with systems in which the dispersed phase is solid and the continuous phase is liquid. 

COLLOID SYSTEMS. Colloids are usually defined as disperse systems with at least one characteristic dimension in the range 10 7 lo ll> centimeter. Examples include sals (dispersions or solid in liquid) emulsions (dispersion of liquids in liquids) aerosols (dispersions of liquids or solids in gases) /inum (dispersion of gases in liquids or solids) and gels (system, such as common jelly, in which one component provides a sufficient structural framework for rigidity and other components fill the space between the structural units or spaces). All forms of colloid systems are encountered in nature. Products of a colloidal nature arc commonly found in industry and are notably extensive in the food field. Foams, widely used in industrial products, but also the causes of processing problems are described in entries on Foam and Foamed Plastics. 

In the various sections of this chapter, I will briefly describe the major characteristics of FT-IR, and then relate the importance of these characteristics to physiochemical studies of colloids and interfaces. This book is divided into two major areas studies of "bulk" colloidal aggregates such as micelles, surfactant gels and bilayers and studies of interfacial phenomena such as surfactant and polymer adsorption at the solid-liquid interface. This review will follow the same organization. A separate overview chapter addresses the details of the study of interfaces via the attenuated total reflection (ATR) and grazing angle reflection techniques. 

V. M. Gun ko, J. Skubiszewska-Zieba, R. Leboda, and V. V. Turov, Impact of Thermal and Hydrothermal Treatments on Structural Characteristics of Silica Gel Si-40 and Carbon/Silica Gel Adsorbents, Colloids Surf. A 235 (2004) 101-111. 

Using preformed sols instead of metal alkoxides as precursors is an attractive alternative in sol-gel preparation because recent advances in inorganic colloidal dispersions allow some control over the characteristics of the starting sols [11]. Often a colloidal suspension of sol particles is stabilized (i.e. prevented from flocculation) by pH adjustment. Thus, pH of the solution, which can be changed by the addition of either acid or base, is the single most important parameter in obtaining a gel from preformed sols. Other parameters that can impact on gel quality are the size and concentration of the starting sol particles. 

Sols are obtained via either colloidal or polymeric routes. In the first method, colloids are formed and stabilized by adding peptizing agents (acidic or basic electrolytes) to metal hydroxides, and the gel is obtained by evaporating the solvent. In the second (polymeric) method, alkoxides are used as starting materials and hydrolysis and condensation reactions control the size of the resulting clusters (temperature and pH are the critical parameters). Additives such as surfactants may also play an important role in the sol characteristics by controlling the hydrolysis step of the alkoxides [25]. 

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