CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Flexible Chain Polymers (FCP) of biological origin constitute a universe of molecules found in different types of biomass: from microorganisms (bacteria, fungi and microalgae) to macro algae, plants and higher animals. FCPs have a series of common characteristics, which gives them interesting properties that can be applied in different biotechnological areas:i) With the sole exception of gelatin, which is a polypeptide of animal origin, all natural FCPs are polysaccharides, some of them with covalently linked electrical charged chemical groups (SO3, NH2, COOH) which confers them with the property of polyelectrolytes. Others, on the other hand, are electrically neutral since they are only composed by polysaccharide chains (Haug and Draget, 2011; Seymour, 1971; Woitovich Valetti et al., 2016).ii) They all come from natural sources, but in some cases they must be subjected to earlier chemical and physical treatments for their extraction, partially degrading the polysaccharide chains or introducing acidic or basic groups to transform them into soluble forms (Bakshi et al., 2020). The most popular is cellulose, which is insoluble in water and must be subjected to chemical and/or physical procedures to obtain soluble forms (Wernersson et al., 2015).iii) As a consequence of a high number of OH groups in their structure, FCP are soluble and have an extraordinary ability to interact with water dipoles by forming hydrogen bonds, obtaining highly viscous solutions, which is the basis of many of its applications (Dobrynin and Rubinstein, 2005; José García de la et al., 2008).iv) FCPs with electrically charged chemical groups tend to act as weak acids or bases. Therefore, according to the pH of the medium, and their pKa value, more or less rigid structures are formed (Dobrynin and Rubinstein, 2005).

enviar mensaje