Bound water in biopolymers: possible role in polarization storage

Abstract

Water inside living cell fluctuates between phases of disordered liquid and ordered solid determined by polymerization and the bound water in biopolymers is considered to be of fundamental physical and biological importance. Charge storage in biopolymers i.e. the bioelectret state has been demonstrated in a variety of biomolecules e.g. amino acid derivatives, proteins, polypeptides, benzene derivatives, aromatic polyimides etc. and a number of methods have been used for these studies. In the present paper results of our studies on the charge storage or bioelectret state in diastase an enzyme, dextrin a polysaccharide and folic acid - a vitamin using TSDC technique will be examined considering the effect of hydration on TSDC peaks for the role of bound water in polarization storage. All the biopolymers studied here have been found to store a large amount of polarization through bound water present in three different states (i) the structured water strongly bound on the back bound of the biopolymer (ii) the multiple hydrogen bonded intermediate bound water and (iii) the weakly bound water absorbed on the surface of the biopolymer. Further studies on a variety of biopolymers may establish the role of bound water in bioelectret state.