The addition of LBG significantly improved the mechanical strength and stiffness of the agar films. A maximum synergistic peak of TS was observed at 50–75% LBG content for both agars
(p < 0.05; TS∼80–120 MPa in Fig. 5A).This clear maximum was not seen during the rheological studies performed on the film-forming solutions (Fig. 2) nor on the agar/LBG hydrogels (Sousa&Gonc¸ alves,2015). Previous studies of Lafargue, Lourdin,and Doublier(2007)
failed to confirm the strong in fluence of -carrageenan in modified starch sols and gels observed in the rheological experiments,when the mixed systems were processed in the film-form. Probably, the molecular reorganization occurring during the drying step of the film-forming solutions were more significant for the systems with agar and LBG.
This could result in blended films with better properties than the pure polysaccharide ones. However,further studies should be conducted to verify this hypothesis. The viscoelastic properties previously determined for agar/LBG gels(Sousa & Gonc¸ alves,2015) did not describe the same relation as the TS of the films (Fig. 5A). Yet,the comparable properties of NA and AA
blended films(despite NA’s known weaker gel networks) seemed to agree well with the stronger interactions suggested between NA and LBG when the agar/LBG gels were evaluated under large
deformations (Sousa &Goncalves,2015). The stiffness of the NA films in turn,suffered a gradual increase up to 75% LBG addition (p < 0.05; YM∼8.05 GPa for 25/75 NA/LBG;notshown).