A rheological study of hyaluronan and sodium hydroxide at different concentrations

Abstract: This thesis examines how the rheological properties change depending on the composition of hyaluronan, HA and sodium hydroxide, NaOH. This was performed to see if there was any relationship between the rheological properties of a sample depending on different compositions of HA and NaOH. Moreover, the fluidity of the samples was studied by investigating . Five concentrations of HA (11, 18, 20, 25, 33 wt%) were investigated with six concentrations of NaOH (0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 wt%). Rheology was used to determine rheological properties of the composition and the rheometric data was obtained from three different measurements: time sweep, frequency sweep and amplitude sweep. G', G'' andwere investigated but no clear correlation was found. However, some patterns were detected for frequency sweep and amplitude sweep. The graphs generally followed the same shape and the compositions with 11% HA generally had the lowest G' and G'' values. Additionally, the majority of the samples, that could be measured, could be defined as fluids, due to  being higher than 1.