Thermal stability of food additives of glutamate and benzoate type

Summary

Many years ago, thermal analysis earned its place as a current instrumentation technique in assisting/solving the analytical problems of pharmaceuticals. A relative new trend is the study of the thermal stability of food additives in connection with the molecular structure. The studied compounds were: natrium and potassium glutamate, respectively natrium, potassium and calcium benzoate. The thermogravimetric data (TG) were obtained in dynamic nitrogen atmosphere, with open Pt crucible and heating rates of 5, 7, 10 and 12 K min^-1, using a Perkin-Elmer TGA7 equipment. In order to estimate the non-isothermal kinetic parameters, the Friedman's differential-isoconversional method and the method suggested by Budrugeac and Segal (based on the compensation effect) were used. A variation of the activation energy vs. conversion was observed by using Friedman's method. The discrimination between the different reaction steps was performed by the non-parametric kinetic method, suggested by Sempere, Nomen and Serra. This is due to a complex process. The thermal stability data are very important for avoiding a possible misuse by processing of the studied food additives.