ANALYSIS OF NATIVE AND ALKALI-TREATED AGAR FROM SPECIES OF Gracilaria (GRACILARIACEAE, RHODOPHYTA) COLLECTED FROM MORIB, MALAYSIA.
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Abstract
Seaweeds are marine algae commonly found in brackish water to marine environments. The red seaweed Gracilaria (Gracilariaceae, Rhodophyta) is commonly exploited for the production of agar. Alkaline pre-treatment has been shown to increase the quality of agar in previous studies. The aim of this study was to compare the effect of native ( untreated) and alkali treatment on the yield and physical properties of agar from Gracilaria changii (Xia & Abbott) Abbott, Zhang & Xia, Gracilaria salicornia (C.Agardh) Dawson and Gracilaria edulis (Gmelin) Silva collected from Morib in Malaysia. Compared to native samples (control), an addition of alkali pre-treatment step which involved soaking samples with 0.5M NaOH for 1 hour at room temperature prior to extraction was included for the treated samples. Comparative analysis showed that alkali-treated agar of G. edulis gave the highest agar yield (82.56 %) whereas the highest gel strength was obtained from native agar of G. salicornia (430 ± 17.32 g cm-2). Alkali treatment was found to be effective only for the increase of gel strength in G. edulis but not in G. changii and G. salicornia. The native and alkali-treated agars in all species gave comparable gelling and melting temperature which were in the range of (36-39ºC) and (80-87ºC) respectively. The overall results showed that G. salicornia had superior agar quality and is thus a potentially good source for industrial use. Analysis on chemical properties of agars can be performed in future to determine the agar composition of these species.
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