Experimental Study of Thermal Restraint in Bio-Protectant Disaccharides by FTIR Spectroscopy

In the present paper, InfraRed (IR) spectra on water mixtures of two homologous disaccharides, i.e. sucrose and trehalose, as a function of temperature have been collected. In particular, IR spectra were registered, in the spectral range from 4000 cm-1 to 400 cm-1, to investigate the thermal response of the water mixtures of two homologous disaccharides, through positive thermal scans, i.e. by increasing the temperature from the value of 25°C to the value of 50°C. The OH-stretching region has been analyzed by means of two simple and straightforward procedures, i.e. by evaluating the shift of the intramolecular OH stretching center frequency and the Spectral Distance (SD). Both the analyses indicate that trehalose water mixture have a higher thermal response than that of the sucrose-water mixture.