Superior quality agar from Gracilaria species (Gracilariales, Rhodophyta) collected from the Gulf of Mannar, India

Gracilaria edulis, G. crassa, G. foliifera, and G. corticata are naturally occurring agarophytes of Indian waters. These agarophytes were evaluated for their agar contents using an improved process recently reported by us (US Patent 2005/0267296A1). The effect of different concentrations of NaOH in...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of applied phycology 2008-08, Vol.20 (4), p.397-402
Main Authors: Meena, Ramavatar, Prasad, Kamalesh, Ganesan, M, Siddhanta, A. K
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
agar
alkali treatment
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Ecology
Freshwater & Marine Ecology
Gracilaria
Gracilaria edulis
Gracilaria spp
Gracilariales
Life Sciences
Plant Physiology
Plant Sciences
rheology
Rhodophyta
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Gracilaria edulis, G. crassa, G. foliifera, and G. corticata are naturally occurring agarophytes of Indian waters. These agarophytes were evaluated for their agar contents using an improved process recently reported by us (US Patent 2005/0267296A1). The effect of different concentrations of NaOH in the alkali treatment was studied for optimizing the extraction conditions. These Gracilaria species of Indian waters produced agars, both native and alkali treated, with different properties confirming the heterogeneity of the agar polymers in this genera, as one would expect. Among these, G. edulis and G. crassa produced agar polymers having high gel strengths of 490 ± 8.16 and 800 ± 15.4 g cm⁻², respectively, with 8% NaOH treatment as opposed the low gel strength agars that have been reported in the literature to date.
ISSN:0921-8971
1573-5176
DOI:10.1007/s10811-007-9272-6