Effects of sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate on colloidal properties and molecular characteristics of konjac glucomannan hydrogels

When konjac glucomannan (KGM) molecules are deacetylated under alkaline conditions, the aqueous KGM solution is transformed into a thermally stable gel. In this study, series of Na2CO3-induced and K2CO3-induced KGM hydrogels were prepared by deacetylation using different concentrations (0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 M) of alkali. The hydrogels were characterized using texture profile analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform...