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Explore the reaction mechanism of the Maillard reaction: a density functional theory study

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Abstract

The mechanism of Maillard reaction has been investigated by means of density functional theory calculations in the gaseous phase and aqueous solution. The Maillard reaction is a cascade of consecutive and parallel reaction. In the present model system study, glucose and glycine were taken as the initial reactants. On the basis of previous experimental results, the mechanisms of Maillard reaction have been proposed, and the possibility for the formation of different compounds have been evaluated through calculating the relative energy changes for different steps of reaction under different pH conditions. Our calculations reveal that the TS3 in Amadori rearrangement reaction is the rate-determining step of Maillard reaction with the activation barriers of about 66.7 and 68.8 kcal mol-1 in the gaseous phase and aqueous solution, respectively. The calculation results are in good agreement with previous studies and could provide insights into the reaction mechanism of Maillard reaction, since experimental evaluation of the role of intermediates in the Maillard reaction is quite complicated.

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Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges financial support from the National Science Foundation of China (21203166, 21302167, 21473157), the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (Y4100620), and the Food Science and Engineering the Most Important Discipline of Zhejiang Province (JYTsp2014111).

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The authors declare no competing financial interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Chemistry, Zhejiang Gongshang Universty, Hangzhou, 310018, China

    Ge-Rui Ren, Li-Jiang Zhao, Qiang Sun & Hu-Jun Xie

  2. Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China

    Qun-Fang Lei & Wen-Jun Fang

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  1. Ge-Rui Ren
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  2. Li-Jiang Zhao
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  3. Qiang Sun
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  4. Hu-Jun Xie
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Correspondence to Ge-Rui Ren or Hu-Jun Xie.

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Ren, GR., Zhao, LJ., Sun, Q. et al. Explore the reaction mechanism of the Maillard reaction: a density functional theory study. J Mol Model 21, 132 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00894-015-2674-5

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