Rheological insight of polysaccharide/protein based hydrogels in recent food and biomedical fields: A review

Abstract

The exceptional network assembly of natural polysaccharides/proteins-based hydrogels offers favorable biological characteristics and tunable physical properties making them ideal candidates for food and biomedical applications. Rheological analysis can provide quantitative information insights into the assembled network, which are critical for determining hydrogel properties and their suitability for food or biomedical use. This review introduced some concepts of rheology and brought together the hydrogels based on more than ten natural biopolymers, such as starch, pectin, gellan, xanthan, alginate, gelatin, carrageenan, soy protein, casein protein, whey protein, agar, cellulose, konjac glucomannan, and their related rheological studies. In addition, combined with our previous work, the effect of diverse cross-linking strategies on rheology and the role of various rheological characteristics (such as modulus variations, shear behavior changes, thixotropy and creep recovery capabilities, etc.) in gel design and application (such as 3D printing-based foods, active ingredients carrier, etc.) were also discussed.

Keywords: Biopolymer; Hydrogels; Polysaccharide; Protein; Rheology.