The role of pulsed electric fields treatment in enhancing the stability of amino acid - sugar complexes:- interactions between L-Phenylalanine and -Cyclodextrin

In this work, the effect of pulsed electric fields (PEF) treatment on the interactions between amino acids (using L-Phenylalanine: L-Phe) and sugar (using -Cyclodextrin: -CD) complex was analysed by fluorescence spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and simultaneous thermal analyzer. Moreover, the molecular dynamics of -CD-L-Phe inclusion complex treated by PEF was calculated by molecular modelling. The results indicated that -CD-L-Phe complexes are formed by a molar ratio of 1:1, and the stability constant of such complexes increased from 147 to 614M(-1) by PEF treatment. Thermal characterisations of -CD-L-Phe complexes indicated that the PEF treatment could increase the yield of complexes. The PEF treatment resulted in an increase in the reaction enthalpy of -CD-L-Phe inclusion complexes by DSC curve. These results show that PEF treatment has the potential to promote the chemical processing, especially the small organic molecules participate in inclusion or cross-linking reaction.