Premium
The invasive brown seaweed Sargassum muticum as new resource for alginate in Morocco: Spectroscopic and rheological characterization
Author(s) -
El Atouani Samir,
Bentiss Fouad,
Reani Abdeltif,
Zrid Rachid,
Belattmania Zahira,
Pereira Leonel,
Mortadi Abdelhadi,
Cherkaoui Omar,
Sabour Brahim
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
phycological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.438
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1440-1835
pISSN - 1322-0829
DOI - 10.1111/pre.12135
Subject(s) - sargassum , brown algae , extraction (chemistry) , biology , algae , botany , chromatography , chemistry
SUMMARY The Japanese brown seaweed Sargassum muticum , recently invaded several shorelines worldwide including the Atlantic coast of Morocco with large well‐established populations. Within the framework of a sustainable strategy to control this invasive seaweed, we report on extraction yield, spectroscopic characterization and rheological properties of alginate, a commercially valuable colloid, from harvested biomass of S. muticum . Extraction yield was about 25.6% on dry weight basis. Infrared spectroscopy analysis shows that the obtained Fourier transform infrared spectra of the extracted biopolymer exhibit strong similarities with that of the commercial alginate. Furthermore, Proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy revealed that S. muticum alginate has almost equal amounts of β ‐D‐mannuronic acid (M; 49%) and α ‐L‐guluronic acid (G; 51%) with an M/G ratio of 1.04 and a high content of heteropolymeric MG GM diads suggesting a sequence distribution of an alternated polymer type. Rheological measurements were performed at different sodium alginate concentrations, temperatures and shear rates. The hydrocolloid exhibited pseudoplastic behavior and showed shear thinning, particularly at high solution concentration and low temperature which is consistent with the rheological behavior reported for commercial alginates. Considering the abundance of S. muticum in the Northwestern Atlantic coast of Morocco and the quality of the extracted hydrogel, this invasive species could be considered as a potential source of alginates.