Sulfation of Kappa carrageenan with K2SO4

Alkaline treatment in carrageenan recovery from seaweed is known as desulfation process and used to commercially enhance the gelation behavior by reducing sulfate content. in order to increase the number of hydrophilic groups,namely sulfate groups,the desulfated carrageenans from kappaphycus alvarezii seaweed were sulfated using k2so4 in sulfation process. carragenan (2 gram) was dissolved in distilled water (30 ml) and then mixed with k2so4 solution 0.1 n at 80°c for 30 min. after ethanol precipitation,the precipitated carrageenan was dried. this research studied the reaction mechanism of sulfation using the changes of infra red spectra (ftir). it is found that sulfation was able increase sulfate groups in the desulfated carrageenan. the reaction between desulfated carrageenan and k2so4 involved sulfation the hydroxyl group on carrageenan chain. from preliminary work,it is showed that the obtained of sulphated carrageenans can be used as a material for stable hydrogel. © school of engineering,taylor’s university.