BARC/PUB/09/0861

 
  Structural evolution of aging agar-gelatin co-hydrogels  
     
 
Author(s)

Singh, S. S.; Aswal, V. K.; Bohidar, H. B.

ABSTRACT

Agar-gelatin co-hydrogel was investigated over a period of »30-days by dynamic light and small angle neutron scattering, and rheology to quantify changes occurring inside the hydrogel. Degree of nonergodicity was extracted as a heterodyne contribution from the measured dynamic structure factor data. From the analysis of the data, we observed two relaxation modes namely fast and slow modes with relaxation times t f and t s whose dependence with aging time, ta fall on a scaling behavior given by power-laws, t f~(ta)-1/5 and ts~(ta)3/5 respectively. Further the analysis showed the heterogeneity size (xSANS) obtained from SANS also follows power-law behavior, xSANS~(ta)-1/5. The data taken together revealed the ‘‘speeding up’’ of fast and ‘‘slowing down’’ of slow mode relaxation processes.

 
 
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