Spectroscopic Identification of Individual Acacia Gums

Gum arabic is the oldest and best known of all natural gums and is made of hardened sap taken from two species of the acacia tree; Acacia senegal and Acacia seyal. Natural polymers are never uniform or simple, variability in composition, structure and size is the common feature. For example, there are more than 1400 species of Acacia gums in the world and to distinguish between them by chemical analysis has proved a challenging task. There are variations in the amounts of the various sugars and amino acids between species, and for the same species from different countries. The pioneer in analysing literally hundreds of acacias was the late Dr Douglas Anderson.