Effect of gamma irradiation on the macromolecular integrity of guar gum

✍ Scribed by Kornelia Jumel; Stephen E. Harding; John R. Mitchell

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 831 KB
• Volume: 282
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-6215
• DOI: 10.1016/0008-6215(95)00385-1

✦ Synopsis

Irradiation is becoming an increasingly important melhod of processing fl~odstuffs. Our understanding of its effects on the molecular integrity of food polysaccharides such as guar gum is however still very limited. In this study a range of techniques was used to deternline absolute weight-average molecular weights and conformational parameters for a homologous series of irradiated guar gum samples. It was found that molar masses and viscosities of the irradiated samples decreased with increasing irradiation dose. However. this decrease was not linear but appeared to occur ill Iwo stages. Mark~Houwink parameters confirmed that there was no silliil'icallt chaiige ill tile gross confilrination due to irradiatiou, Evahiation (11" tile radiation yield Ihrou{2h soocalled Glwi,,i,,ni valui2s lave tin averaLze vahl¢ of 3,14 which is hiwer than ¢xpecled for polysa¢charides iiidiciithl t sOllle resistance lo i'adiolyii¢ degradation, The anlounl of [2Liar lunl recovered after sample work-up hlereased with increashlg radiation dose, This sulgt~sis concentrated solution properties of guar gunl are siglfificailtly hlfluenced by non-hydrated/undissolved material.