Effects of food preservatives on body proteins of aquatic organisms

Abstract

Excess food preservatives get added to water bodies with industrial and domestic effluents which may interact with body proteins of aquatic organisms. In order to find out the effect of concentration of these food additives in water on their interactions with amino acids, the smallest units of proteins, various physicochemical properties have been studied. For the present investigation conductivity measurements of aspartic acid in aqueous solutions of two food preservatives potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate were performed in the temperature range between 293.15 and 313.15 K. The specific conductance (К) was measured at various concentrations of aspartic acid, potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate in solutions. Molar conductance (Λm), limiting molar conductance (Λm0), degree of dissociation (α), and association constant (KA) are calculated from the measured data. Different thermodynamical properties like change in free energy (ΔGA), change in enthalpy (ΔHA) and change in entropy (ΔSA), Walden product (Λm0ɳ0) and activation energy (Ea) are also derived by using various relationships. It was observed that the conductivity of the solutions varies with concentration of solute and cosolute. Conductivity of the solutions increases with rise in temperature due to increase in movement of the ions formed by dissociation of amino acid and the electrolytes and molecular interaction between the species present in the solution.