Quasielastic Neutron Scattering Study on Thermal Gelation in Aqueous Solution of Agarose.

The dynamics of water and agarose molecules in an agarose aqueous solution has been studied by means of quasielastic neutron scattering (QENS). The dynamic structure factor (,) of the agarose aqueous solution was fitted well to the sum of the Lorentz and delta function. The former is attributed to the diffusive motion of water molecules and the latter to the local vibrational motion of agarose molecules.

Thermal Behavior of Water in Sephadex G25 Gels at Low Temperatures Studied by Adiabatic Calorimetry.

Water in a crosslinked dextran gel, Sephadex G25, is known to remain partially unfrozen during cooling and undergoes ice crystallization during rewarming. However, the mechanism of ice crystallization during rewarming is still unclear. To elucidate the frozen state of water in the gel, thermal behavior at low temperatures was investigated by using adiabatic calorimetry.