2 research outputs found
Effect of KGM deacetylation on the physicochemical rheological and structural properties of glucomannan gels.
This paper focuses on the relationship between network structure and physicochemical
and rheological properties of aqueous glucomannan dispersions (AGD) as a function of pH, to establish optimal conditions of glucomannan gelation for making restructured
seafood products. Various lots of AGD were prepared from 3% (L1) and 5% (L2) konjac
glucomannan adding different amounts (0.5-5%) of 0.6N KOH to obtain samples with
successively increasing degrees of alkalinity, from pH= 8.9 to =11.9 (samples L1.1-L1.6 for 3% AGD) and from pH= 7 to 11.4 (samples L2.1-L2.6 for 5% AGD). The spectra of the different AGDs were obtained by Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) to quantify the deacetylation ratio, whose effect on the physicochemical, mechanical (puncture), viscoelastic (at both small and large time scales) and structural characteristics (scanning electron microscopy (SEM)) was analysed. A linear dependence was found between the relative area of acetyl bands of AGD and pH, showing a discontinuous region in the function or gap zone between pHs 9.3 (L1.2) and 9.8 (L1.3) for 3% AGD and
between 9.2 (L2.3) and 10.7 (L2.4) for 5 % AGD. Samples before the gap zone (L1.2 and
L2.3) were gels of varying degrees of weakness, becoming strong gels thereafter. The gelation conditions were best at pH~10.7 for both 3 and 5% AGDs, corresponding to high
and moderate deacetylation ratio, respectively. The resulting gels possessed elastic,cohesive and time-stable networks and thus formed basic structures able to contain
several ingredients for making restructured seafood products. The SEM photographs
corroborated the physicochemical and rheological characteristics.This work has been supported by the Ministry of EconomÃa y Competitividad under the
Project AGL-24693 and by the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones CientÃficas for
Predoctoral Scholarship BES-2009-018321. The authors wish to thank the Xunta de Galicia for its financial support under the Chttp://dxonsolidation and restructuring program of competitive research units: Strategic Research Partnerships (2009/060)