Drying process of sodium alginate edible films forming solutions studied by LF NMR

The dynamics of water in sodium alginate film-forming solutions during drying were investigated by low-field nuclear magnetic resonance. At the beginning of drying, three transverse relaxation times at around 1.74, 28.48 and 305.38 ms were assigned to the tightly bound, moderately bound, and free water, respectively. Moreover, the free water was evaporated, followed by the formation of water cluster in the entangled alginate chains network as the drying process continued (beyond 840 min of drying time). Towards the third stage of drying process, water clusters in alginate samples was disappeared, resulting that loosely bonded waters were constrained within the weak-gel network. The observed three relaxation times revealed the multi-exponential relaxation behavior of water in alginate, which indicated that this polymer exhibited spatial heterogeneity during drying. On the basis of diffusive exchange theory, the dimension range of alginate network decreased from 1.94-23.99 to 1.83-6.62 µm as the alginate films solidified.