Compositional heterogeneity of alginates through NMR analysis

Two analytical methodologies are used for the analysis of the NMR data of a lginates. The samples are shown to be compositionally heterogeneous, and th e NMR data can be treated with either a discrete or a continuous statistica l model. The unfractionated alginate is found to contain at least four comp onents: two mostly homopolymer blocks, one somewhat alternating copolymer b lock, and one or more random copolymer blocks. Other information available includes chemical composition distribution, component statistics and reacti on probabilities, and average M and G block lengths.