Effects of temperature, shearing time and rate of shear on the viscosity of chitosanagar-blend solutions.docVIP

Maejo Int. J. Sci. Technol. 2010, 4(02), 261-267 Maejo International Journal of Science and Technology ISSN 1905-7873 Available online at www.mijst.mju.ac.th Short Communication Effects of temperature, shearing time and rate of shear on the viscosity of chitosan/agar-blend solutions * Esam A. El-hefian and Abdul H. Yahaya Department of Chemistry, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia * Corresponding author, E-mail: eelhefian@; Tel: 00603 Fax: 00603 Received: 14 February 2010 / Accepted: 22 July 2010 / Published: 28 July 2010 Abstract: In this study, a number of aqueous solutions of chitosan/agar blends (with chitosan as the major component) were prepared. The effects of temperature, shear rate and shearing time on the rheological property, i.e. the apparent viscosity, were investigated for the blend solutions. Results o o show that a non-Newtonian behaviour was pronounced at temperatures from 20 C to 50 C for all solutions and that a decrease in viscosity with increasing temperature was also observed. It was also found that all the blend solutions obeyed the Arrhenius equation to different degrees. In addition, shearing time independence was found to occur at a low shear rate only for pure chitosan solution. However, the shearing time independence slowly shifted to occur at higher shear rate with increasing agar content. Keywords: rheology, chitosan, chitosan/agar mixture, viscosity of chitosan blend Introduction Chitosan and agar are natural polymers that are much used in food, cosmetic, pharmaceutical and some other industries [1-5]. Chitosan is a polysaccharide formed by alkaline deacetylation of chitin, the second most abundant naturally occurring polysaccharide from crab and shrimp shells [6]. Agar, on the other hand, is a hydrocolloid extracted from seaweed and mainly consists of agarose and agaropectin [7]. One un