Capillary Electrophoretic Identification of Commercial Gelling Agents

Gelling agents based on polysaccharides have become extremely important in the food industry. As more and more products like soups and sauces have become available in lyophilized form, thickeners have to be added to give a controlled consistency to the finished meal. A capillary electrophoretic method has been developed to investigate the monosaccharide composition of hydrolyzed thickeners. 2-Aminoanthracene was used as a derivatization reagent to allow sensitive fluorescence detection. This system was applied to a set of standard thickeners as well as to food samples.