Determinação de minerais nas gomas carragena e xantana

Abstract

Gums are food additives that can have a thickening, stabilizing and emulsifying action. They are mainly formed by carbohydrates, but there are reports in the literature about considerable ash values in the commercial carrageenan and xanthan gums, so it is interesting to know their main minerals. The objective of the present work was to know the macro and micro minerals present in the carrageenan and xanthan gums, the report of these components for these additives little found in the literature. The gums were purchased from a food supply company in Brazil and subjected to spectrophotometry, flame photometry and atomic absorption spectrometry analyzes to find the levels of P, K, Ca, Mg, S, Cu, Mn , Zn and Fe minerals. The micromineral Fe stood out for the two studied gums. Xanthan gum has very small amounts of macrominerals. The presence of minerals such as K and Ca can alter the rheological behavior of gums, as shown in the literature, with K found prominently among the macrominerals analyzed for gum carrageenan. Carrageenan hydrocolloid can be a source of Fe for human consumption when consumed in appreciable quantities. The conclusions mentioned in this work are based on one commercial lot of gums. It is interesting, in future study, to evaluate the minerals of the carrageenan and xanthan gums from different commercial sources and have a more comprehensive conclusion on the inorganic fraction of the studied hydrocolloids.