Gellan Gum Properties and Development Trends

要旨

Gellan gum is a promising microbial extracellular polysaccharide in recent years, which has excellent characteristics such as low dosage, high transparency, acid resistance, high temperature resistance, enzyme resistance and good compatibility, and has broad application prospects in food, pharmaceutical and chemical industries.

At present, the carbon source in the fermentation medium for industrial production of gellan gum is sucrose or glucose, which is more expensive compared with common starch and molasses, increasing the production cost and leading to higher final selling price, therefore, using molasses, starch and even cellulose as primary raw materials is the development trend.

Gellan gum is a promising microbial extracellular polysaccharide in recent years, which is also known as kelco gum.

Gellan gum has excellent characteristics such as low dosage, high transparency, acid resistance, high-temperature resistance, enzyme resistance, good compatibility, etc.

In recent years, it has replaced xanthan gum, gelatin and other common edible gums, and has a broad application prospect in food, medicine, chemical industry and other fields.

ジェランガムの特性

Due to the stable and special properties of gellan gum, it has shown great advantages in many aspects.

1. Safe and Non-toxic

Gellan gum, as extracellular polysaccharide produced by microbial fermentation, is approved for use by many countries and is not toxic and can be used safely.

2.Good Thermal Stability

After six cycles of treatment at 121? for 15min, the gel strength can still be retained by half, while the agar gel strength through the same treatment is 84% less.

3. Acid and Alkali Resistance

It can show its stable property from pH 4 to 10, which is more stable than similar food additives and suitable for most of food.

4. Unchanged by Most Enzymes

Researchers have added various enzymes (pectinase, amylase, cellulase, papain, etc.) to the gellan gum solution, and the viscosity and gel strength of the gellan gum solution did not change significantly.

5. High Efficiency

Only 0.25% dosage can achieve the gel strength achieved by 1.5% agar and 1% carrageenan.

6. Good Compounding Property

Gellan gum can be used in food together with other colloids to give the products unique taste and flavor.

The Development Trend of Gellan gum in China

In 1982, Kang et al. first reported the use of an aerobic Gram-negative bacterium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC31461), finally named Sphingomonas paucimobilis, to successfully produce gellan gum on a laboratory scale, called polysaccharide PS-60.

In 1992, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the widespread use of gellan gum as a binder and stabilizer in food.

Since the end of 2000, large-scale industrial production of gellan gum has been available in China, but the current cost of fermentation and extraction is relatively high and the production process needs to be further improved.

After xanthan gum, gellan gum is one of the most superior biogums in the world, but the application value of its excellent traits has not yet been fully developed. With the development of molecular biotechnology, it will be possible to construct high-yielding strains of gellan gum by means of genetic engineering, so as to improve the yield of gellan gum and reduce the production cost.

Secondly, from the perspective of raw materials, the current carbon source in the fermentation medium of industrial production of gellan gum is sucrose or glucose, which is more expensive compared with common starch and molasses, which increases the production cost and leads to higher final selling price, therefore, molasses, starch or even cellulose as the primary raw material is the development trend.

Since gellan gum is safe and non-toxic, and has the advantages of acid and alkali resistance and good thermal stability, it has great application prospects in various industries.