CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Emulsion-filled gels are widely used in cosmetic, food, and pharmaceutical industry. Asrheological properties of these systems are strongly dependent on the properties of the gelledpolymer network, rheological characteristics of gels containing high and low acyl gellan gumwere analyzed. Under the processing conditions low acyl emulsions were unstable, thus in thepresent work the influence of oil and hydrocolloid concentrations on the viscoelastic behavior ofemulsion-filled gels containing high acyl gellan gum was studied. Increasing gellan concentration(from 0.1 g/100g to 0.5 g/100g) produced stronger gels, while oil fraction (10 g/100g ? 30g/100g) slightly affected the elastic behavior of the emulsions reinforcing the structure and theelastic characteristics of the gellan matrix. Sauter diameter (d32) was measured for all emulsionsand an average value of 12 m was obtained. Rheological data (oscillatory and creep-recoverytests) were successfully modeled to interpret the structural characteristics of the gelledemulsions. The broadened Baumgaertel-Schausberger-Winter spectrum was used to representthe linear viscoelastic behavior of the continuous phase and the emulsified system, showing thatthe rheological behavior of the systems was controlled by the highly structured continuousphase rather than the contribution of filler lipid droplet in the emulsion. Relaxation spectra werevalidated using creep?recovery experiments. Regardless of hydrocolloid concentration, creepcompliance of the gel emulsions decreased compared with their respective gels, showing thatthe inclusion of oil droplets produced a reinforcement of the structure and the gel strength of thematrix.