Name:pectin
Cas no.:9000-69-5

 Pectin is the major binding component of the cell walls of plants and fruits. It is chemically a polysaccharide, consisting of a linear chain of linked molecules of galacturonic acid; regions on the backbone with a lot of side chains are the so-called “hairy regions”, and regions with little side chains are referred to as “smooth regions”.

 Pectin has the property to form a gel with sugar. For this reason, pectin is used in combination with sugar as a thickening agent in the food industry. A well-known usage of pectin is in jam making. Most fruits contain pectin, but not in sufficient amounts to form a thick gel when making jam; pectin is therefore added to improve the quality of jam. Pectin is added to a special sugar that can be used especially for making jam (jellifying sugar). Pectin and sugar form a network when heated, but not at room temperature. This is the reason why jam thickens while cooking.

Commercial pectins are white, light yellow or yellow  powder without odour.
Generally, pectin is a linear polysaccharide chain which consists mainly of galacturonic acid units. The galacturonic acid molecules can be esterified with methanol. According to the degree of esterification (DE), pectin is classified into high methoxyl pectin (HM) with a degree of esterification higher than 50% and low methoxyl pectin with a degree of esterification less than 50% (LM)

 When ammonia is applied in the alkaline de-esterification process, some of ester groups have been replaced by amide group. Therefore, LM pectin is divided into low methoxyl convertional (LMC) and low methoxyl amidated (LMA).