Physicochemical characteristics of some Acacia gums

Abstract

Some Acacia gums (A. senegal, A. seyal, A. polyacantha and A. laeta) were subjected to physicochemical characteristics evaluation in order to illustrate some information required for identification and differentiation between A. senegal gum and the three most important Acacia gums produced in Sudan. The results showed that the four types of Acacia gums have similar pH-values but there were some wide variations between them in other physical characters. For chemical characters Acacia. senegal show the highest value for moisture and ash content and Acacia seyal has the lowest value for nitrogen percentage, the other two types of gum were almost similar. The four types of gums show variations in mineral composition. Amino acids profile showed that Acacia laeta gum has the highest total amino acids content. Asp artic acid and serine were the most dominant amino acids in four types of Acacia gums tested. © 2012 Academic Journals Inc.