Speaker
Description
Phytoglycogen occurs naturally in the form of compact, 42 nm diameter glucose-based nanoparticles in the kernels of sweet corn. Its highly branched, dendritic structure leads to interesting and useful properties that make the particles ideal as unique additives in personal care, nutrition and biomedical formulations. The properties of phytoglycogen nanoparticles can be altered through chemical modifications such as acid hydrolysis, which not only reduces their diameter but also alters their internal structure, producing significant changes to the interactions between particles in solution. As the acid hydrolyzed particles are packed beyond their glass transition volume fraction, the dependence of the zero-shear viscosity on the effective volume fraction abruptly changes from behaviour well-described by the Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann equation to more Arrhenius-like behaviour, with the transition marked by a pronounced kink in the data. This result is consistent with a reduction in stiffness for acid hydrolyzed phytoglycogen nanoparticles with a corresponding reduction in their fragility index.
