A comparative study on the rheological properties of concentrated xanthan gum in combination with gum arabic or gum arabic-based emulsion

A goal of this study is to explore the difference in rheological properties of xanthan gum (XG)-based mixtures with gum arabic (GA) or GA-based emulsion (GAE). The stability of GAE was improved by thickening with XG. The intrinsic viscosity of all mixtures decreased as GA concentration increased, implying an XG conformational transition from the disordered to the ordered form. All mixtures except for an XG-GA mixture at 6.0 % GA attained a higher consistency index value than XG alone, indicating synergistic interactions between the components. At a high GA concentration (>3.0 %), the XG-GAE mixture showed higher relative apparent viscosity values than the XG-GA mixture. All mixtures except for an XG-GA mixture at 6.0 % GA showed higher elastic modulus and lower viscous modulus values than XG alone. Consequently, all mixtures showed lower tan δ values (0.26–0.30) than XG alone (0.31). Moreover, with a high GA concentration (>1.5 %), the XG-GAE mixtures achieved lower relative tan δ values than XG-GA mixture. These results indicate that XG formed a higher weak gel-like network with GAE than GA. Overall, the findings demonstrate that the interaction between XG and GA is influenced by conformational changes in the latter in both aqueous and emulsion systems.