Decolourization of Gum Arabic using Activated Charcoal

This research work is aimed at decolourizing gum Arabic using activated charcoal so as to improve the quality of gum Arabic before the use of additives on the gum Arabic. The experiment was conducted on laboratory scale, the filter fixed bed method was used and the adsorbent (activated charcoal) is a granular of 500μm mesh size. The pH, viscosity and transmittance of each solution were measured before and after passing through the fixed bed of activated charcoal. The results showed that the pH increases from 4.58 to 5.70 and viscosity reduces from 3.75 to 1.85 for unsorted gum solution while pH increases from 4.40 to 5.60 for sorted gum solution. The transmittance values for both sorted and unsorted gum solution increase with increase in wavelength as shown in the results which means decolourization has taken place to a very large extent.