Recent advances in the understanding of heat set gelling polysaccharides

Since the mechanism of heat set gelation is not well-understood, the recent advances in the understanding of the gelation of Konjac glucomannan and curdlan are described mainly based on rheological and thermal studies. Although both gels formed at sufficiently higher temperatures are thermo-irreversible, hydrogen bonding is believed to play an important role in the network formation. The contribution of hydrophobic interaction should be also studied further. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.