Introduce of sodium alginate

　　sodium alginate also known as alginate, extracted from natural seaweed polysaccharide carbohydrate. it Widely used in food, pharmaceutical, textile, printing and dyeing, paper making, and daily chemical products.as a thickener, emulsifier, stabilizer, binder, sizing agent used. Since the eighties has been the application of sodium alginate in food have been further expanded. Sodium alginate is not only a safe food additive, but also as a biomimetic substrate for food or food effect, because it is actually a natural fiber, can slow the absorption of fat, sugar and bile salt, with lower serum cholesterol, blood triglyceride and blood sugar effect, can prevent hypertension, diabetes, obesity and other modern diseases. It is in the intestinal tract can inhibit harmful metals such as strontium, cadmium and lead accumulation in the body, precisely because such an important role in sodium alginate, at home and abroad have increasingly been paid more attention. Japanese to food rich in sodium alginate as “longevity food”, the Americans claimed it as “wonderful food additive.”

　　Alginate is present in brown algae class natural polymer, is extracted from brown algae or bacteria in a natural polysaccharide, similar to the extracellular matrix glycosaminoglycan GAGs, no sub-acute / chronic toxicity or carcinogenicity reaction, can be used as edible food additives, can be used as scaffold material for medical use, have good biocompatibility [10]. Alginate is a guluronic acid (denoted as G above) and its stereoisomers mannuronic acid (denoted as M above) composed of two structural units, the two structural units in three ways (MM paragraph GG MG section and paragraph) by α-1, 4 glycosidic bonds link to form a non-branched linear block copolymers. Alginate is easy to integrate with a number of metal ions to form a gel. Moreover, the mild sol-gel process, a good biocompatibility to alginate suitable for release or embedded as drugs, proteins and cells in microcapsules. When the six carboxyl and sodium ions on the combination of sodium alginate to form the salt (Sodium Alginate). Higher classification of sodium alginate. Points from the structure can be divided into high G / M ratio, the G / M ratio, low G / M ratio of three. From the viscosity of the points can be divided into low viscosity, medium viscosity and high viscosity sodium alginate. From the purity of the points can be divided into industrial, food and medical three levels. Different quality of alginate gel beads for a great impact on the structure. Is generally believed that the high G / M ratio, suitable for use in the preparation of low viscosity sodium alginate gel beads. Moreover, when the plastic beads used for biological engineering should choose medical grade alginate.