Wet spinning of sodium carboxymethyl cellulose-sodium caseinate hydrogel fibres: relationship between rheology and spinnability

Vaniyan, Lathika; Borah, Pallab Kumar; Pavlovskaya, Galina E.; Terrill, Nick; Reid, Joshua E.S.J.; Boehm, Michael; Prochasson, Philippe; Nicholson, Reed A.; Baier, Stefan; Yakubov, Gleb E.

Abstract

Mimicking the fibrous structures of meat is a significant challenge as natural plant protein assemblies lack the fibrous organisation ubiquitous in mammalian muscle tissues. In this work, wet-spun hydrogel fibres resembling the anisotropic fibrous microstructure of meat are fabricated using carboxymethyl cellulose as a model polysaccharide and sodium caseinate as a model protein which are crosslinked using 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)carbodiimide (EDC). Hydrogels and spun fibres were characterised using a combination of rheology (shear, oscillatory, and extensional), microscopy (light, polarised, and fluorescence), rheo-NMR, and X-ray diffraction. Examination of structuring behaviour under shear uncovered a relationship between enhanced biopolymer orientation along the fibre axis and a viscoelastic time-dependent ageing window for optimal hydrogel spinnability. This study provides novel rheological and structural insights into mechanisms of protein-polysaccharide assembly that may prove instrumental for development of tuneable fibres for applications in plant-based foods, tissue engineering, and biomaterials.

Citation

Vaniyan, L., Borah, P. K., Pavlovskaya, G. E., Terrill, N., Reid, J. E., Boehm, M., Prochasson, P., Nicholson, R. A., Baier, S., & Yakubov, G. E. (2025). Wet spinning of sodium carboxymethyl cellulose-sodium caseinate hydrogel fibres: relationship between rheology and spinnability. Soft Matter, 21(20), 3946-3956. https://doi.org/10.1039/d4sm00705k

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 19, 2025
• Online Publication Date: Feb 24, 2025
• Publication Date: May 28, 2025
• Deposit Date: Mar 24, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 24, 2025
• Journal: Soft Matter
• Print ISSN: 1744-683X
• Electronic ISSN: 1744-6848
• Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 21
• Issue: 20
• Pages: 3946-3956
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d4sm00705k
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/46996561
• Publisher URL: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2025/sm/d4sm00705k