Mechanical behavior of cold‐water fish gelatin gels crosslinked with 1,4‐butanediol diglycidyl ether

CZERNER, MARINA; PRUDENTE, MARIANO; MARTUCCI, JOSEFA FABIANA; RUEDA, FEDERICO; FASCE, LAURA ALEJANDRA

JOURNAL OF APPLIED POLYMER SCIENCE

JOHN WILEY & SONS INC

Año: 2020 vol. 137

0021-8995

In this work, chemical crosslinking with 1,4-butanediol diglycidyl ether(BDDGE) is used as strategy to enhance mechanical performance of fish gela-tin (FG) gels in order to meet the properties´ range of mammalian gelatin phys-ical gels. Joint analysis of free amino groups, swelling ratio, and total solublematerial indicates that crosslinking degree increases with increasing FG con-centration and it is favored by a 0.2 BDDGE/FG ratio. Increasing crosslinkingdegree enhances gel indentation strength and shear modulus (μ) whiledecreases fracture toughness (G IC ). Measured μ and G IC values lies within therange exhibited by mammalian gelatin physical gels, but the relationshipbetween these parameters is opposite. This is due to the different fracturemechanisms occurring in chemically crosslinked and physical gels.