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Title: THE APPLICATION OF POLYMERS IN FOODS

Author
item CHENG, H - HERCULES INC
item Cote, Gregory
item BAIANU, IAN - UNIV OF ILLINOIS

Submitted to: Macromolecular Reports
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/1/1999
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The use of polymers in foods is widespread and is a major thrust in the food and the specialty chemicals industries. In the past several years, intensive research coupled with new analytical tools have provided a better understanding of polymer structures and properties. There is increasing awareness that the principles of polymer physics and polymer chemistry can be applied to food systems. This awareness has spurred fundamental structure/property studies relating to polymer additives in foods and their functions. Since research is being carried out in academia, industry, and government labs, albeit with different emphases, we thought it would be useful and timely to bring together many leading researchers in this area in order to promote collaborations and to furnish a valuable update of this area from different perspectives. Accordingly, we organized an international symposium held at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society at Dallas, Texas, March 31-April 2, 1998. The symposium was entitled "Application of Polymers in Foods" and was jointly sponsored by the ACS Polymer Chemistry Division and the ACS Carbohydrate Division. Financial support was provided in part by ACS Polymer Chemistry Division, the ACS Corporate Associates, and Hercules Incorporated. While the symposium was concluding at one part of the city in Dallas, another meeting was getting started at another part of Dallas. Through the sponsorship of Fine Particle Society, one of us (Baianu) organized a mini-symposium on the use of NMR for food polymers. A number of the ACS attendees went over to this meeting, and several very interesting talks were presented. In view of the success of these two symposia, we decided to edit a symposium volume combining most of the contributions from the two symposia.