Effect of temperature and shear on the microstructure of a microbial polysaccharide secreted by Sphingomonas species in aqueous solution

Diutan gum is a biological polymer produced by Sphingomonas sp. In aqueous solution it shows gel-like structure under quiescent conditions. However, the flow-induced evolution of its viscoelastic properties and its microstructure are not known. In this work, the viscoelastic moduli were obtained under a flow field, applied in parallel, as a function of the temperature for 0.5 wt% diutan gum aqueous solutions. As both stress and temperature increase a decrease in the viscoelastic properties occurred, due to the fact that the molecular interactions decreased. Nevertheless, at stresses within the zero-shear viscosity region of the flow curves, no changes were observed. In addition, high stress values dampened the effect of the temperature. The results obtained are very interesting from an industrial application perspective.