Study on effect of sample preparation on structure and size distribution of exudate gums using asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation coupled with multi-angle light scattering (AsFlFFF-MALS)

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Exudate gums are widely used as emulsifiers or thickening agents in the food industry. The performance of exudate gums is affected by their physicochemical properties such as molar mass (), molecular size, molecular conformation, protein content, et al. The high polydispersity, large and poor solubility of exudate gums bring challenges to their analysis. Either filtration or centrifugation can be used for preliminary separation of soluble and insoluble parts of the gum. However, their separation efficiency and their effect on the structural changes in gums are still unclear.
In this research, asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation coupled with multi-angle light scattering (AsFlFFF-MALS) was used to investigate the effect of the preparation method (filtration or centrifugation) on the size and the conformation of three types of gums (labelled ‘GT’, ‘GA’, and ‘GK’, respectively).
The effect of removal of insoluble and large -populations on the emulsifying property of gums are also evaluated. Results showed that both filtration and centrifugation remove the co-eluted large populations, thus decrease the measured radius of gyration () of the gums. The removal of the large-sized populations and insoluble parts significantly reduced the viscosity of the gum dispersion and the emulsion prepared by the gums, resulting in an decreases in the stability of the emulsions.