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Elasticity and conformational structure of pure and modified agaroses gel

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Abstract

Dissolving Agarose, which is a biopolymer extracted from marine algae in water, gives rise to a more or less rigid solid mass called a gel. This gel can be described as a porous matrix, retaining the liquid phase (water). The matrix is a network of connected helices forming a more or less heterogeneous structure in terms of pore size distribution depending on the agarose concentration. These original experiments were performed with a batch of agarose gel (Setexam). This material has several applications in the food industry, pharmaceuticals and electrophoresis. The various experimental tests were carried out for various concentrations (0.5 g% < c < 9 g%) by mass of the agarose gel (cylinder 14 mm high and 14 mm in diameter) immersed in air and in water and for a rapid compression speed of 0.5 mm/s. These recent experiments aim to estimate the values of Young's modulus E by simple compression. It has been shown that the slope of the stress–strain curves depends both on the mechanical properties of the structure but also on the compressibility of the network through the Poisson's ratio υ. A related network (Agarose gel) behaves incompressibly in linear regime for small low deformation ε ≤ 4% and also for relatively fast compression speeds vary between V = 0.1 mm/s and V = 1 mm/s. Under these conditions, the elastic moduli \(E(\upsilon \approx 0.5,c)\)in linear regime (ε  ≤ 4%) of the gels of various agarose concentration c were compared. This rheological study of the gel exhibits elastic macroscopic behavior. This result is then used to determine the speed of propagation of ultrasonic waves. We conduct a statistical study to compare the molecular conformations agarose chemically modified M1 and M2 to sample M0. It is shown that the conformation of the helix is greater in the modified agarose gel M1 compared to M2 agarose modified at the same temperature. This was followed by a study of the thermal hysteresis confirming the reversibility of both types of modified agarose. Finally, we compare the gelation process of the three samples and we studied the variation of the entropy of M0, M1 and M2 to understand the role of the hydrogen bond in gel formation.

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Acknowledgements

The authors sincerely thank Mr A. Benatmane which has obtained his PhD grade under the direction of professors M. Benelmostafa (co-author) and M. Dahmani (co-author) for his contribution to the realization of a part of this work which was presented as an oral communication during congress entitled "technologies information and integrated production systems (Oujda Maroc TIPSI 2016)". This work was supported by annual funding from the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) in France and the Mohammed Premier University of Oujda (Morocco). The authors thanks Snabre Patrick for his constructive comments and for providing cylindrical duralumin molds with flat circular lamellae.

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  1. Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Particle Physics, Modeling and Energy URAC 07, Faculty of Sciences, Université Mohamed Premier, Oujda, Morocco

    Abderrahim Ed-Daoui, M’hammed Benelmostafa, Mohammed Dahmani & Abdelghani Chahlal

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  1. Abderrahim Ed-Daoui
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  2. M’hammed Benelmostafa
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  3. Mohammed Dahmani
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  4. Abdelghani Chahlal
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Correspondence to Abderrahim Ed-Daoui.

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Ed-Daoui, A., Benelmostafa, M., Dahmani, M. et al. Elasticity and conformational structure of pure and modified agaroses gel. Polym. Bull. 79, 11119–11137 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-021-04007-y

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