Synergistic gel formation of xyloglucan/gellan mixtures as sudied by rheology, DSC, and circular dichroism

The gelation behavior of mixtures of tamarind seed xyloglucan (TSX) and sodium form gellan (Na-G) was investigated. The storage and loss shear moduli, G' and G'', of the mixtures showed that a thermoreversible gel was obtained although each polysaccharide alone did not form a gel at experimental conditions. The viscoelastic behavior of the mixtures showed a gel formation of TSX and Na-G induced by synergistic interaction. This synergistic interaction was also revealed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and circular dichroism. Although TSX alone did not show any peak in DSC curves, mixtures with only a small amount of Na-G, which by itself did not show any peak, showed a single peak. With increasing Na-G content, another peak began to appear at the same temperature at which a peak of Na-G alone appeared. Thermally induced changes in circular dichroism of the mixtures were different from those expected from the individual behavior of TSX and Na-G.