Experimental Design to Optimize the Extraction and Properties of an Alternative Gum from Crotalaria Juncea Seeds

In this work, it was obtained and characterized a gum extracted from Crotalaria Juncea seeds. For this purpose, 2³ factorial experimental design was performed to generate significant and predictive first-order mathematical models. It was evaluated how the independent variables used in the extraction processes (temperature, NaCl concentration and time) influenced the dependent variables (yield, organic matter content and viscosity). The yields were between 11 and 36 w/w% and the molar masses of the gum were between 7.499 × 10 5 and 1.448 × 10 6 g/mol, with average organic matter content of 72.76 w/w%. The characterization analyses confirmed the predominance of a galactomannan polysaccharide. Brine samples containing the gum with different ion concentrations had a pseudoplastic rheological profile, without alteration of the viscosity values with variation of the salt concentration in the brine, but the viscosity decreased with rising temperature.