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

Distillers grains are a huge secondary raw material resource, prospective for different fields, including pharmaceutical use, because of a rich content of biologically active com- pounds. The purpose of this paper was to esti- mate 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: sur- face 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 forma- tion amounted to 1.32 mol/m3 and 1.48 mol/m3 respectively. Surface-active characteristics of distillers grains and isolated pectins are compa- rable 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 de- termined 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.

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