Alginate Applications

Alginate Applications:

Textile printing:
In textile printing, alginates are used as thickeners for the paste containing the dye. Alginates became important thickeners with the advent of reactive dyes. These combine chemically with cellulose in the fabric. Many of the usual thickeners, such as starch, react with the reactive dyes, and this leads to lower colour yields and sometimes by-products that are not easily washed out. Alginates do not react with the dyes, they easily wash out of the finished textile and are the best thickeners for reactive dyes.

Food:
The thickening property of alginate is useful in sauces and in syrups and toppings for ice cream. Addition of alginate can make icings non-sticky and allow the baked goods to be covered with plastic wrap. Water-in-oil emulsions such as mayonnaise and salad dressings are less likely to separate into their original oil and water phases if thickened with alginate. Some fruit drinks have fruit pulp added and it is preferable to keep this in suspension; addition of sodium alginate, or propylene glycol alginate ( PGA ) in acidic conditions, can prevent sedimentation of the pulp. In chocolate milk, the cocoa can be kept in suspension by an alginate/phosphate mixture.

Calcium alginate films and coatings have been used to help preserve frozen fish. The oils in oily fish can become rancid through oxidation even when quick frozen and stored at low temperatures.

Immobilized biocatalysts:
When used enzymes as biocatalysts for the conversion of glucose to fructose, the production of L-amino acids for use in foods, the synthesis of penicillins , conversion of starch to ethanol , and the continuous production of yoghurt. To carry out these processes on a moderate to large scale, the biocatalysts must be in a concentrated form and be recoverable from the process for re-use.