Rheology and microrheology of a microstructured fluid: The gellan gum case

Particle tracking microrheology is used to study the effect of a constant applied shear during gelation of aqueous gellan gum with a monovalent salt. Shear modifies the gellan gum hydrogel microstructure and the bulk rheological properties of the system, depending on whether shear is applied during gelation or afterwards. The microstructure determines the linear elastic response of the gel, as well as the critical strain and stress above which the response becomes nonlinear. Bulk oscillatory rheology is used to study microstructured gellan gum hydrogels at different polymer and salt concentrations. The similarity between our system and concentrated microgel particle suspensions can be explained by considering the microstructured gellan system to be composed of microgel particles whose size is set by the applied shear stress magnitude during gelation. Polymer concentration and ionic strength control the individual microgel particles’ elastic properties. We also find the gellan system exhibits an isoenergetic transition from the jammed to un-jammed state when sheared, similar to jammed colloidal systems [C. G. Robertson and X. R. Wang, “Isoenergetic jamming transition in particle-filled systems,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 075703 (2005)].