Research on Sol-Gel Transition Process of Gelatin

Abstract

As a kind of functional material, gelatin gel is widely used in controlled drug release, biological tissue engineering, photographic and food industries. Plenty of studies on the gelatin gel have been carried out by researchers, which include gelation mechanisms, gelation kinetics, analysis on the crosslinked structure and macroscopic performance during the gelation process. Numerical simulation is a new method used in the study of gelatin sol-gel transition process, which can make up for the deficiency of the experimental research. E.g., the dynamic gelation process makes it difficult to measure the structural and performance parameters in time and space scales in experiments. However, these problems have been solved by numerical simulation method in our previous work. The experimental, theoretical and numerical simulation research on sol-gel transition of gelatin is reviewed, and the progress and difficulties in this field are discussed.