Algkick as food additive. The most unique effect of kelp products like algkick, or of alginates which are the main component, its capacity to bind heavy metals. The difference between cellulose in land plants and alginic acid as corresponding cell wall material of the biggest sea plants is that an acid group is added to the sugar-like units which form the giant molecules, this gives them a capacity to bind certain ions in their surrounding. In other words they serve as an ion exchanger. Ions would be caught in the order of the ionotropic series: Lead > copper > cadmium > barium > strontium > calcium> cobalt> nickel> zinc> manganese. Most research has ben made on strontium, as its radioactive isotope makes it easy to quantify how much is deposited in the sceleton and how much is released. At the time this was found out it was still considered more important to find a remedy for cancerogene atomic decay products than for pollution poisoning of lead fram traffic and food, mercury from amalgav and of cadmium and arsenic from industrial pollution. The chemistry of alginates contains much information which explains their capacity to bind heavy metals and the functioning of this binding under different conditions. ”Alginic acid is a polymer in brown seaweeds, which consists of two acid carbohydrate monomers, i.e. D-manuronic and L-guluronic accid, stereo-chemical isomers differing only in the configuration of the carboxyl group. These two sugars (uronic acids) are bound chemically to form a long chain. The proportions of these uronic acids differs widely…….In general, guluronoc acid-rich alginates were found to be more effective (metal-binders) than mannuronic acid-rich alginates.” (Tanaka 1970) The guluronoc acid content and thus the biological potency can be increased by partial hydrolysis. How much can be bound? The affinity for heavy metals of sodium alginate was investigted by Takahashi and Isuji 1981. They found a maximum value of metal\/uronic acid residue about 2. On the other hand, the ratio for single ion by precipitation experiments was about 0.5. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Algkick as food additive. The most unique effect of kelp products like algkick, or of alginates which are the main component, its capacity to bind heavy metals. The difference between cellulose in land plants and alginic acid as corresponding cell wall material of the biggest sea plants is that an acid group is added to … <\/p>\n