Characterization of Alginates by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Vibrational Spectroscopy (IR, NIR, Raman) in Combination with Chemometrics.

This chapter describes three different spectroscopic methods for structural characterization of the commercial important hydrocolloid alginate extracted from brown seaweed. The "golden" reference method for characterization of the alginate structure is (1)H liquid-state NMR of depolymerized alginate polymers using a stepwise hydrolysis. Having implemented this method, predictive and rapid non-destructive methods using vibrational spectroscopy and chemometrics can be developed. These methods can predict the M/G-ratio of the intact alginate powder with at least the same precision and accuracy as the reference method in a fraction of the time that is required to measure the alginate using the reference method. The chapter also demonstrates how solid-state (13)C CP/MAS NMR can be used to determine the M/G ratio on the intact sample by the use of multivariate chemometrics and how this method shares the characteristics of the solid-state non-destructive IR method rather than its liquid-state counterpart.