Preliminary Phytochemical Evaluation and chemical Composition of Gum Isolated from Fenugreek Seeds

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Food Sciences, College of Agriculture, University of Basrah, Iraq

Abstract

The present study aimed to extract the gum from fenugreek seed and studying the chemical composition, the preliminary phytochemical, and the flow properties. The extraction was conducted under different conditions (temperature, soaking period, and mixing ratios of seeds: water).  The highest yield was of the fenugreek gum was 30.44% around 1:25w/v at 40 Cº for 4 h.  Preliminary qualitative chemical test for gum shows the presence of carbohydrate, protein, amino acids, fixed oil, fats, and Ruthenium red while Arabic gum and Acacia showed that carbohydrates were only found, the fenugreek gum had 9.4 % moisture, 2.3 % ash, 2.49% protein and 0.9% fat. The total polysaccharide content of isolated gum was determined spectrophotometrically using the phenol–sulphuric acid method. The total polysaccharide content was 84.75%. Arabic gum and Acacia had 5.44, 5.56 % moisture, 3.74, 2.975% Ash, 0.0% protein, 0.0% fat and 90.80, 91.25% carbohydrates. The gum showed good flow properties it has good viscosity of 72.40 CP compared to the Arabic gum and Acacia 9.1, 9.61 CP higher concentration of NaCl and CaCl caused a larger decrease in viscosity, increasing or decreasing the pH and temperature led to the decrease of viscosity, and micrometric properties such bulk density, tapped density, Hausner's ratio, Carr's index, particle size and Angle of repose Bulk density was found to be 0.37 g/ml, tapped density was 0.58 g/ml, Carr's index was 36.20%, Hausner's ratio 1.56 and Angle of repose was found to be 34.02.

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