Effects of acetylation on the emulsifying properties of Artemisia sphaerocephala Krasch. polysaccharide

In the present study, polysaccharides extracted from Artemisia sphaerocephala Krasch. seeds (ASKP) were acetylated to improve the emulsifying properties of the macromolecules. Several methods were applied for the acetylation purpose, among which the acetic anhydride-pyridine method with formamide as solvent was found to be the most effective one. Acetylated ASKPs with various degree of substitution (DS) were successfully produced and structurally characterized using HPSEC-MALS, FTIR and 1H NMR techniques in this study. Results showed that acetylation treatment could cause the degradation of ASKP. Moreover, with the increase of DS, both the molecular weight and radius of gyration increased, as well as the molecular conformation trended to be more compact. Low DS (DS: 0.04 and 0.13) conferred acetylated ASKP a lower viscosity than that of ASKP. With the increase of DS, the viscosity of acetylated ASKPs increased and exceeded that of ASKP. Compared with ASKP, acetylated ASKPs could reduce the surface tension to a greater extent and demonstrated a much smaller droplet size (ZD) in an oil/water emulsion system. Acetylated ASKPs were capable of stabilizing the oil/water emulsion for 3 days at 60 °C, whose performance was as good as that of gum acacia. In conclusion, such a hydrophobic modification on ASKP conferred it better emulsifying properties.