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A STUDY OF THE WATER ACTIVITY LOWERING BEHAVIOR OF POLYETHYLENE GLYCOLS IN THE INTERMEDIATE MOISTURE RANGE
Author(s) -
CHIRIFE JORGE,
FONTAN CONSTANTINO FERRO
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
journal of food science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 150
eISSN - 1750-3841
pISSN - 0022-1147
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2621.1980.tb07596.x
Subject(s) - polyethylene , polyethylene glycol , aqueous solution , moisture , water activity , macromolecule , thermodynamics , chemistry , water content , range (aeronautics) , polymer chemistry , organic chemistry , materials science , composite material , biochemistry , physics , geotechnical engineering , engineering
This work reports on the experimental determination of water activity (a w ) in aqueous solutions of polyethylene glycol 200, 400, and 600, respectively. The measurements were made in the a w range of most interest to intermediate moisture foods formulation (about 0.80–0.95). The observed behavior was very well fitted by Norrish's (1966) equation and a simple relationship was found between Norrish's correlating constant and molecular weight of polyethylene glycols. It was found that this relationship may be explained through a theoretical analysis of the thermodynamic behavior of macromolecules in solution.