Title: Alternative Sweeteners

500 Mitchell et al.
products. The ingredient is approved in more than 50 countries and is used widely
throughout the world.
II. COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION
Polydextrose is a randomly bonded melt condensation polymer of glucose. This
unique product is a patented material invented in Pfizer Central Research Laboratories
by Dr. Hans Rennhard (2). The patent describes the process for manufacture
and applications of a novel carbohydrate substitute.
Polydextrose is prepared commercially by vacuum bulk polycondensation
of a molten mixture of food-grade starting materials. The starting materials are
glucose, sorbitol, and either citric acid or phosphoric acid in approximately an
89:10; 0.1–1 mixture. The final product of this reaction is a weakly acidic watersoluble
polymer that contains minor amounts of bound sorbitol and citric or phosphoric
acid.
The theoretical chemical structure of polydextrose is illustrated in Fig. 1.
This structure is drawn to represent the types of bonding that can occur during
polymerization. The R group may be hydrogen, glucose, or a continuation of the
polydextrose polymer. As evidenced by this representative structure, polydextrose
is a very complex molecule, being highly branched with varied glucose
Figure 1 Representative structure for polydextrose. R H, sorbitol, sorbitol bridge,
or more polydextrose.