Physical Gels from Biological and Synthetic Polymers

Presenting a unique perspective on state-of-the-art physical gels, this interdisciplinary guide provides a complete, critical analysis of the field and highlights recent developments. It shows the interconnections between the key aspects of gels, from molecules and structure through to rheological and functional properties, with each chapter focusing on a different class of gel. There is also a final chapter covering innovative systems and applications, providing the information needed to understand current and future practical applications of gels in the pharmaceutical, agricultural, cosmetic, chemical and food industries. Many research teams are involved in the field of gels, including theoreticians, experimentalists and chemical engineers, but this interdisciplinary book collates and rationalises the many different points of view to provide a clear understanding of these complex systems for researchers and graduate students.

1. Introduction; 2. Techniques for the characterisation of physical gels; 3. The sol-gel transition; 4. General properties of polymer networks; 5. Ionic gels; 6. Hydrophobically associated networks; 7. Helical structures from neutral biopolymers; 8. Gelation through phase transformation in synthetic and natural polymers; 9. Colloidal gels from proteins and peptides; 10. Mixed gels; 11. Innovative systems and applications.

Madeleine Djabourov is Professor at Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielles (ESPCI-ParisTech), in charge of thermodynamics and rheology courses. She was involved in pioneer studies on gelation and percolation initiated by Pierre Gilles de Gennes.
Katsuyoshi Nishinari is a special appointment professor at the Graduate School of Human Life Science, Osaka City University. He organized a collaborative research group on gellan gum in the Research Group on Polymer Gels in the Society of Polymer Science, Japan, and has been a recipient of the JSFST, JSR and JSBR awards and Food Hydrocolloids Trust Medal.
Simon B. Ross-Murphy is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester (Materials Science) and the University of Nottingham (Biopolymer Science and Technology). He has previously been Chair in Biopolymer Science at King's College London and before that at Unilever Research.