Prof. Neimark has received a $157,500 research award from Colgate-Palmolive titled " Computational Modeling of Xanthan Gum Solutions". The project aims at developing coarse-grained dissipative particle dynamics simulation methods to study the effects of metal-complexation on the morphological and rheological properties of polysaccharide solutions. As a case-study example, we consider Xanthan gum (XG) solutions containing ZnCl2 that are widely used in food and personal, and health care products. The simulations established the relationships between the solution dynamic viscosity and salt concentration that depend on the intensity of shear and polymer composition. The proposed computational methodology of modeling the effects of metal complexation and chain composition may be extended and applied to studies of morphological and rheological properties of various polysaccharide systems.
The period of the project is for 2 years.
