Thirteenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

The jackfruit tree produces latex in all plant parts, where this latex might behave like natural rubber. The latex from jackfruit is composed of cis and trans-polyisoprenes, with contents of 34.4% and 65.6%, respectively. However, its low or non-existent solubility in water limits its applications in the food or pharmaceutical areas. In the last decade, our laboratory has intensified the use of ultrasound. Ultrasound, based on the cavitation/collapse, causes high enough shear forces to break the covalent bonds. This study evaluated the use of high-intensity ultrasound (HIUS) to increase the solubility of jackfruit latex polyisoprenes. Therefore, the strategy to process polyisoprenes was to use HIUS and Sono-chemistry. The polyisoprenes concentrated (10.9 x 103 g/mol) from jack fruit, treated by ultrasonic and precipitated in methanol were obtained by dissolving 1 g of polyisoprenes concentrated into 10 mL of toluene. The treatment was performed using an ultrasonic FS-1200N equipment. A factorial design (A 2x3) was used, evaluating 900 and 1200 Watts for 5, 10, and 15 min. For the Sono-chemistry experiments, 1 mL of hydrogen peroxide was added to the solution prepared above. The solubility was the highest (30%) when the sample was treated at the highest power intensity (1200 Watts) and time (15 min). However, the Sono-chemical treatments did not improve the polyisoprenes solubility. Therefore, the ultrasound was able to modify the structural conformation of polyisoprenes from jackfruit to make them more hydrosoluble. This enables the polyisoprenes to be used as bioactive polymers in further encapsulation applications.