Capsule application
Capsules are a conventional dosage form of medicines, and the quality of capsules directly affects the performance of medicines. Traditional capsules are made of gelatin, glycerin and water, and are widely used because of their low price. However, gelatin is not used in many types of medicines due to its shortcomings such as easy water loss hardening, water absorption softening, and cross-linking and curing. It is suitable for adoption, so plant capsules based on hydroxypropyl methylcellulose and microbial polysaccharide capsules based on pullulan came into being with stronger applicability. The oxygen transmission rate of pullulan is hydroxypropyl methylcellulose. 1/300 of methyl cellulose capsules, 1/8 of gelatin capsules, which can well protect the contents of capsules from oxidation. In the selection of high-quality capsule wall materials, pullulan can be said to be “unmatched right”.
Fruit and vegetable preservation
The film-forming property of pullulan is very prominent, and it is very easy to form a tough film, and the film has low permeability, which can effectively isolate the exchange of gas and water molecules, thus playing the role of freshness preservation. The fresh-keeping effect of pullulan is related to the molecular weight, the larger the molecular weight, the more stable the formed film. The storage period of fruits and vegetables treated with high-molecular-weight pullulan has been greatly improved. Some studies have pointed out that after apples are treated with 200,000-molecular-weight pullulan, the water retention rate is still above 99% after 2 months. The fresh-keeping mechanism of pullulan is slightly different from that of chitosan, and chitosan has more antibacterial pathways. Therefore, the combined use of pullulan and chitosan can maximize the improvement of the freshness of fruits and vegetables. freshness.
Edible film
Under the dual pressure of environmental degradation and resource scarcity, the enthusiasm for developing environmentally friendly products continues to rise. Pullulan polysaccharide has good film-forming properties, and it can form a film without the assistance of other substances. Because the edible film made of pullulan polysaccharide has poor permeability, it can protect the contents well and increase the shelf life. Lulan polysaccharide is easy to degrade in the environment, and has outstanding advantages in the development of edible films, known as “edible plastics”.
Food processing
Compared with common microbial polysaccharides such as xanthan gum and gellan gum, the application of pullulan in food processing has not been widely developed. The former Ministry of Health listed pullulan as a new food additive product in 2006 One of them is currently only used in a limited range of seasonings, fruit and vegetable juice drinks, and protein solid drinks.
In fact, pullulan polysaccharide has shown good application advantages in many fields such as meat products, rice and flour products, and my country, as a large agricultural country, has abundant corn as the raw material of pullulan polysaccharide, and its application in the food industry will be promising .