Study of the physical and chemical properties of gum produced from the Indian fig cactus cladode Opuntia ficus-indica

This research was conducted in the laboratories of the NationalCommission for Biotechnology in 2020-2021, and it aimed to determine theoptimal conditions for extract the gum from Cactus pear Opuntia ficus-indicaand study its chemical composition, physicochemical and functional propertiesand compar it with arabic gum and guar gum, The cactus cladode samples werecollected from the Al-Maidani area in Damascus countryside, and its basiccomposition and the optimal conditions for extracted gum were determined byseveral methods(thermal and non-thermal ) and from wet and dried samples,then the gum was precipitated and dried. The highest yield of the extracted gumreached 28.95% from the wet samples using heat treatment at 75°C for a periodof 60 minutes. By studying the chemical composition of the gum, it was notedthat the percentage of ash and protein was higher compared to guar gum andgum arabic, while the percentage of carbohydrates for cactus cladode gum wasless compared to the other studied gums. the results of the physicochemicaltests showed an similarity between cactus cladode gum and guar gum in someproperties such as the refractive index, bulk density and Hausner’s coefficient,As for the viscosity, it was very close to the viscosity of Arabic gum, The effectof adding sugar, salt and changing pH on the viscosity of cactus cladode gumand other studied gums, and it was found that there was a significant effect ofadding salt in reducing the viscosity of the cactus cladode solution compared tothe control, and there was no effect of increasing the salt concentration, andadding salt had a significant effect in reducing the viscosity of Arabic gum, andincrease the viscosity of guar gum, the effect of adding sugar was significant inincrease the viscosity of cactus cladode gum and arabic gum and decreasingthe viscosity of guar gum, and the pH significantly affected the viscosity of cactuscladode gum and arabic gum without having an effect on the viscosity of guargum , Functional group characterization was carried out using FT-IR technique.The functional properties were determined and the results showed the superiorityof cactus cladode gum in the water holding capacity and emulsifying capacitycompared to arabic gum, while it was superior to guar gum in the foamingcapacity.