Exploring gelation and contact aging in colloidal gels: Insights from casein micelles with tuneable softness

Enzymatic milk gels result from the destabilization of casein micelles, which are natural colloids found in milk. After aggregation,
these soft particles have been shown to display “contact-aging”, i.e. the reinforcement of their contact or “sintering” over time. This
microscopic mechanism may drive the pronounced structural aging reported for a wide variety of colloidal gels, where the gel network is
found to coarsen over time. The casein micelles are colloids with softness that can be adjusted by varying the pH or adding different types of
salt. Within this proposal, we aim to relate the microscopic rearrangement of casein micelles with tuneable softness and the evolution of the
mesoscopic structure of the gels.