• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.32 no.9
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• pp.3473-3476
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• 2011

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.6 no.1_2
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• pp.27-36
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• 1973

The effect of water activity on degradation of pigments in dried lavers, Porphyra tenera Kjellm. was examined when stored at room temperature for fifty days. Chlorophyll pigment was extracted with methanol-petroleum ether mixture solvent(2:1 v/v), partitioned in ether, and analysed spectrophotometrically at 662 nm as chlorophyll a. The degradation products of chlorophyll were isolated on sugar-starch column(85:15 w/w) with n-propanol-petroleum ether solution(1:200 v/v) as a developing solvent. The isolated green colored zones were analysed individually at the wavelengths of 650, 662, and 667 nm as allomerized product, chlorophyll a retained, and pheophytin formed respectively. Carotenoida were also extracted with the methanol mixture solvent, partitioned in ether, and finally redissolved in acetone after the evaporation of ether in a rotary vacuum evaporator. The total carotenoid content was measured as lutein at 450 nm. From the results, it is noted that the rate of chlorophyll degradation reached a minimum at 0.11 to 0.33 water activity while progressively increased at higher moisture levels resulting in rapid conversion of chlorophyll to pheophytin. At lower activity, autocatalysed oxidizing reaction like allomerization seemed prevailing the acid catalysed conversion reaction. The loss of carotenoid pigment was also greatly reduced at the range of 0.22 to 0.34 water activity with much faster oxidative degradation at both higher and extremely lower moisture levels. These two moisture levels indicated above at which the both pigments exhibited maximum stability are considerably higher than the BET monolayer moisture which appeared 7.91 percent on dry basis at Aw=0.10 calculated from the adsorption isothermal data of the sample at $20^{\circ}C$. The rate of pigment loss in heat treated samples at 60 and $100^{\circ}C$ for 2 hours prior to storage somewhat decreased, particularly at higher moisture levels although the final pigment retention was not much stabilized.