ABSTRACT
Gum polysaccharides consist of different monosaccharide units that are joined together by O-glycosidic linkages. Diversity in the structural features of different polysaccharides is because of the difference in the monosaccharide composition, chain shapes, and degree of polymerization and linkage types. Gum polysaccharides are commonly used in food and nonfood industries as stabilizers, thickening and gelling agents, crystallization inhibitors, and encapsulating agents. Therefore, they are also known as hydrocolloids or gums. Gum polysaccharides in nature mainly occur as storage materials, cell wall components, exudates, and extracellular substances from plants or microorganisms. In the past few years, an expanding interest has been devoted to the synthesis of chemically modified polysaccharides through grafting, which combine the advantages of both synthetic and natural polymers. Graft copolymerization of vinyl monomers onto natural polysaccharides is the most promising technique as it functionalizes the biopolymers to their potential by imparting desirable properties onto them (Patel et al., 1999; Pourjavadi et al., 2005). Graft copolymerization can be done by conventional redox grafting methods (Kang et al., 2006), microwave irradiation (Kaith et al., 2012a; Mittal et al., 2015; Sen et al., 2009), γ-irradiation (Kumar et al., 2012a, b), or using electron beams (Vahdat et al., 2007).
