Supercritical drying of alginate gels is an efficient way to prepare aerogels with high surface area (>300 m2 · g−1). FTIR spectroscopy allows to monitor the adsorption of NH3 from the gas phase onto the acid sites of the alginate. Free carboxylic groups are effective Brønsted sites, whereas the divalent cations used in the ionotropic gelation present the properties of Lewis sites. The ratio between Brønsted and Lewis sites provides infomation on the role of pH in alginate gelation and suggests that non‐buffered gelation by transition‐metal cations is a mixed ionotropic‐acid process.
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Valentin et al. (2005) studied this question.
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