SURFACE-ACTIVE PROPERTIES OF THE DISTILLERS GRAINS AND THE PECTINS ISOLATED FROM THEM

Abstract

Distillers grains are a huge secondary raw material resource, prospective for different fields, including pharmaceutical use, because of a rich content of biologically active compounds. The purpose of this paper was to estimate possibilities of the pharmaceutical use of distillers grains as the additive agent by means of surface-active properties of distillers grains study as well as pectins, isolated from them. We have established the surface-active properties of the liquid phase of the distillers wheat grains by means of higher pressure of air bubbles with the use of Rehbinder’s apparatus. It contained 6.67 mol/m3 pectins, and pectins isolated from a solid phase of the same distillers grains: surface activity 11.67 and 7.54, saturated surface excess amounted to 1.28×10-5 and 6.25×10-5 mol/m2, critical concentration of micelle formation amounted to 1.32 mol/m3 and 1.48 mol/m3 respectively. Surface-active characteristics of distillers grains and isolated pectins are comparable with well-known natural polysaccharides (sodium alginate, polygalacturonic acid, beet bin pectin), which are used as additive agents in technology of medicinal plants. We have determined the sizes of pectins molecules from distillers grains in the unsaturated adsorption layers, which differed from the well-known polysaccharides by lesser square (2.658 Å2), radius (0.920 Å), diameter of cross-section (1.840 Å) and the volume (2727 Å3) at the bigger mass per surface unit (1.031×10-4 кг) and a length (1026 Å). The data obtained by the sizes of pectin molecules are the favorable factor, which conduced their high biological availability.

Keywords

• distillers grains
• pectins
• surface- active properties
• superficial tension
• superficial activity
• superficial excess
• critical concentration
• micelle formations
• adsorption layer.