Physically and Chemically Crosslinked Gelatin Gels

In this paper, we examine the rheological and the structural properties of different types of gelatin networks, physical, chemical and both. The physical gel is due to the formation of collagen type triple helices when cooling the solutions. Chemically crosslinked gels are obtained with a reagent, in our case the bis(vinylsulfonyl)methane (BVSM), kindly provided by Kodak Industrie (France). Each BVSM molecule provides two covalent bonds. The chemical reaction was followed by microcalorimetry (MicroDSC III from Setaram, Caluire, France). The relation between shear moduli and crosslinking for the three types of gels is discussed, in relation with theoretical models of randomly crosslinked systems.