New Researches in Biotechnology - Facultatea de Biotehnologii ...

Proceeding of the 4 rd International Symposium“NEW RESEARCH IN BIOTECHNOLOGY” USAMV Bucharest, Romania, 2011crystals of inulin are not so swollen at 100 ºC temperature and retained similar structureafter heating. The formation of partial gel was observed. At moderate temperature (60–70 ºC), the polymer chains of inulin may have active movement in the solution due tohigher kinetic energy. This may help the inulin chain be better dispersed in solution. Thusthe better contact between inulin chains becomes easier during cooling to form gelstructure. At high temperature (100 ºC) the inulin chain may start to degrade into shorterchains by hydrolysis which makes it harder to form a gel (Kim et al., 2001).ACBDFig. 1. Microscopic image of agar-agar and inulin (16 × 10 or 16 × 40):A - powder of agar-agar; B – agar-agar heated in water at 100 °C; C - powder of inulin; D - inulinheated in water at 100 °C.Similar results were obtained after analysis of the structure of gels of the experimentalsamples with microscope. In comparison with agar-agar gel, the mixed gels were muchmore deformable with some inulin crystals included in agar-agar gel (Fig. 2).74Fig. 2. Experimental gel sample with agar 2.5 g and inulin 23.5 g (16 × 10).