FIZIKA A 18 (2009) 3 , 121-132

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ELECTRO-ACTIVITY IN GUM MANGOSTEEN AND ITS COMPLEXES

S. S. PRADHAN and A. SARKAR
Department. of Physics, B. K. Girls' College, 5/3 M. G. Road,
Howrah 711101, India, E-mail: alokesarkar@vsnl.net

Received 4 April 2009; Revised manuscript received 22 September 2009
Accepted 7 October 2009  Online 29 October 2009

Biomaterial has occupied a leading position in material science for its various scientific and technological applications. The present work was carried out with a natural gum extracted from raw fruit of mangosteen - an east Indian tree Gercinia mangostana. Solid specimen of the gum was developed following a sol-gel like process. AC and DC electrical analysis on the dried solid specimen of the gum was carried out. It exhibits high electrical conduction, s ~ 2×10- 6 S/cm at room temperature, of which ionic and electronic contributions are 70% and 30%, respectively. The experimental investigations show that origin of high electrical conductivity is due to the presence of a substantial amount of organic acid unit in its polysaccharide background. In fact the observed s is about 3 times that observed in gum Arabica - a plant gum. Optical absorption of this new biomaterial was also studied using UV-VIS spectro-photometry. The result shows its high absorption coefficient in UV and blue part of the spectrum. The electrical characterization of the material was also made. It has been observed that the electronic conduction can be enhanced to 70% of the total electrical conductivity by forming complex with iodine or an appropriate organic/inorganic acid, e.g. acetic acid. This high-potential material is being studied for the development in device application.

PACS numbers: 82.35.Pq, 82.35.Cd, 83.80.Mc, 87.68.+z, 82.35.Rs
UDC 537.311

Keywords: biopolymer, electro-active, ion-conductive, optical absorption, mixed conduction

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