Investigation Of Self-Assembly Of Xanthan Gum With Atomic Force Microscopy

Xanthan gum is a kind of polysaccharide with high molecular weight; it can be applied to the field of drug carrying and controlled drug releasing for targeted drug releasing because of its no-toxic and biological compatibility properties. Investigation of Self-Assembly of Xanthan Gum at different conditions by tapping mode atomic force microscopy (AFM) were carried out here, and the results showed that the xanthan gum molecules aggregated together and formed particles at hight concentration, network at lower concentration, and single fiber at the lowest concentration. A hypothesis model was built to illustrate the formation process from network to single fiber of xantha gum moleculars. The self-assembly of xanthan gum at different annealing temperature, ultrasonic effect and pH value were also studied in this thesis.There are 3 parts in this thesis.1. In the first part, xanthan gum was introduced and the aim of this thesis was brought up;2. AFM was introduced in the second part.3. The third part described the experiments in detail, the self-assembly behavior of xanthan gum molecular under different conditions was investigated, such as the different concentration, annealing time, annealing temperature, ultrasonic effect and pH value.