Raza, Kumal2018-03-132018-03-132017https://escholar.umt.edu.pk/handle/123456789/2841Supervised by: Dr. Sohail NadeemA natural polysaccharide sodium alginate was extracted from the algae collected from the fresh water resources near Okara, Pakistan using little amounts of cheap chemicals. This method proved to be very effective, less time and reactant consuming which made it economical. Water and ash content of extracted sodium alginate was determined which came out to be 16% for water and 31 % for ash. Then the sample of sodium alginate was characterized by FT-IR, SEM and XRD to explain its properties. In FT-IR spectra the peaks showed the presence of varoius functional groups. SEM images showed the surface morphology i.e. particles arrangement, shape, size etc. and XRD results showed that sodium alginate was not crystalline in nature but semi crystalline in nature. Similarly the value of intrinsic viscosity for sodium alginate was calculated to be 312 ml/g. This value of intrinsic viscosity was used to calculate the molecular weight of sodium alginate which came out to be 106.94 KDa. Sodium alginate obtained was of good quality and this process seemed to be economical for industry of sodium alginate.enPolysaccharide sodium alginateFT-IR spectraMS ThesisThesis