A novel method to estimate the stiffness of carbohydrate polyelectrolyte polymers based on the ionic strength dependence of zeta potential

Polysaccharides have received a great deal of attention from, for example, the food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. Their conformations (flexibility/stiffness) span a wide range of conformational flexibilities with large hydrated volumes, these properties are important in relation to polysaccharide structure–function relationships. s the simplest parameter available to estimate the dilute solution conformation of polysaccharides is the Smidsrød–Haug stiffness parameter (B) where the stiffness of polyelectrolytes can be estimated by measuring the intrinsic viscosity at a number of different ionic strengths. s paper we propose an alternative method for estimating the Smidsrød–Haug stiffness parameter (B) using the ionic strength dependency of zeta potential. For this purpose we have studied a number of different polysaccharides.