Investigation of infrared spectra of agar-based gel systems for the production of jelly bars

The purpose of this work was to determine the effect of glycerin TM BASF, sunflower honey and sesame powder TM "Korysne Boroshno" on the state of water in gel systems based on agar 1200 TM "Fujian Province" for the production of jelly bars. The research was carried out using infrared spectroscopy on a Perkin-Elmer Spectrum One FTIR Spectrometer. The study showed that gel formation in the "agar-water-glycerol" system leads to redistribution of OH groups, an increase in the number of associated hydroxyls, and water adsorption. This is confirmed by the appearance of a characteristic broad intense absorption band in the region of 37002600 cm^–1 in the IR spectrum. The addition of honey to the gel system leads to a change in the intensity of the band of valence vibrations of the С–С bond in honey carbohydrates (at 1245 cm^–1) and its shift towards higher frequencies compared to the "agar-water-glycerol" gel, which is confirmed by the presence of a band absorption in the region of 1200–700 cm^–1. Spectroscopy data also showed that the addition of sesame powder during the preparation of an agar-based gel reduced the intensity of the OH valence vibrations of the water group (2151 cm^–1), and also led to a shift of the intense broad band towards higher frequencies compared to gels without sesame (2139 cm^–1).