Blandina FT5(14212019) Food Processing Tech.

Alginate

Alginic acid, also called algin or alginate, is an anionic polysaccharide distributed

widely in the cell walls of brown algae, where through

binding with water it forms a viscous gum. In extracted

form it absorbs water quickly; it is capable of absorbing

200-300 times its own weight in water. Its color ranges

from white to yellowish-brown. It is sold in filamentous,

granular or powdered forms.

Alginates are refined from brown seaweeds. A wide variety

of brown seaweeds of the phylum Phaeophyceae are

harvested throughout the world to be converted into the

raw material commonly known as sodium alginate.

Sodium alginate has a wide use across a wide variety of

industries including food, textile printing & pharmaceutical.

Dental impression material utilizes alginate as its means of

gelling. Alginate is both food and skin safe.

Alginates from different species of brown seaweed often

have variations in their chemical structure, resulting in

different physical properties. For example, some may yield

an alginate that gives a strong gel, another weaker gel; one

may readily give a cream/white alginate, another may give

that only with difficulty and is best used for technical

applications where color does not matter.

One of the product use sodium alginate is alginate beads

(calcium Alginate) which created through the addition of aqueous calcium chloride to

aqueous sodium alginate. It is a water-insoluble, gelatinous substance.

This usually use for beverage, appetizers, dessert and

topping which already added by coloring or flavor. Beside

that it can also use as enzyme package when through

catalytic reaction, so the enzyme are easily take back

again after reaction with substrate.