Next-Generation Food Hydrogels: Structure, Stability, and Processing

Dear Colleagues,

Background and aims

Food hydrogels are water-rich, soft materials formed by percolated biopolymer and colloidal networks that strongly influence texture, water-holding, transport phenomena and oral processing in a wide range of foods. Recent advances in proteins, polysaccharides and their hybrid systems, together with novel structuring routes (e.g., controlled heating/cooling, shear, high-pressure processing, extrusion and 3D structuring), are enabling next-generation hydrogel architectures such as mixed and hierarchical networks, composite gels, and stimuli-responsive systems. In the meantime, there is a growing need for mechanistic insight into how composition, microstructure and processing history govern gel formation, physical stability (e.g., syneresis, phase separation, aging, freeze–thaw behavior) and functionality under realistic formulation and processing conditions.

For this Special Issue of Gels, entitled “Next-Generation Food Hydrogels: Structure, Stability, and Processing”, we invite works (original research papers or reviews) on the current state of knowledge regarding the structure, stability and processing of food-relevant hydrogels. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, quantitative structure–property–processing relationships in protein-, polysaccharide-, and composite-based systems.

Suggested Topics

• Structures, gelation mechanisms, and multiscale characterization of protein-based, polysaccharide-based, and composite food hydrogels;
• Physical stability, water distribution and mobility, and aging of food hydrogels under environmental and formulation stresses (e.g., pH, ionic strength, temperature, freeze–thaw cycling, and storage);
• Processing-induced microstructure and structure–property relationships of food hydrogels during mixing, thermal processing (heating/cooling), shear, high-pressure processing, extrusion, and 3D printing/structuring;
• Design and applications of composite, filled, and stimuli-responsive food hydrogels for texture modulation, controlled release, and next-generation food products.

Dr. Yu Bai
Dr. Yunhao Ma
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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