Abstract:

Low molecular alginate has been appearing increased advantages in biomedical engineering. In order to obtain low molecular alginate, hydrogen peroxide was used as oxidant. The apparent viscosity of alginate decreased as the increase of temperature, decrease of pH value and the introduction of catalyst. The result of GPC analysis showed that the average molecular weight of alginate decreased and the molecular weight distribution broadened. It can be inferred from FTIR that degradation of alginate was caused by OH·radicals produced by hydrogen peroxide, which resulted in the breakage of the glycosidic C1-O-C4 bond.