Viscoelastic behavior of dehydrated egg white gel

Abstract

It is known that soft and turbid heat-treated egg white gel (HTEWG) becomes fragile and transparent by dehydration, like the glass state of non-crystalline polymers. During the dehydration process of HTEWG, the log weight showed a decrease proportional to the measurement time and the slope altered at a certain time. The opaque heat-treated egg white gel turns into a transparent substance by dehydration, which looks like a glass. This chapter reports the study in which the measurement of the viscoelastic stiffness of the dehydrated egg white gel with increasing temperature was carried out in order to examine the mechanical properties, which is one of the most popular examinations of the glass transition of polymers. In the measurement, the storage modulus decreased remarkably and the loss modulus showed a broad peak around the temperature T where a thermal anomaly had been observed. As these features are usually observed in the non-crystalline polymers around the glass transition temperature, the occurrence of the glass transition at T was confirmed in the dehydrated egg white gel and also the dehydrated egg white gel could be regarded as a glass.