Effect of emulsifiers on surface properties of sucrose by inverse gas chromatography

Inverse gas chromatography (IGC) was employed to characterize the changes in surface properties of sucrose particles coated with either lecithin or polyglycerol polyricinoleate. IGC was performed using polar and non-polar adsorbates at infinite dilution with the sucrose particles as the solid stationary phase. Coating the sugar surface with emulsifiers induced an increase in the lipophilicity of the sugar particles, i.e. a sharp decrease in the acidity of the surface. Yet the two emulsifiers induced a slightly different increase in the surface basicity. It was hypothesized that this observation was due to a difference in the molecular structure of the emulsifiers.