DSC study on hyaluronan drying and hydration

Abstract The processes of hyaluronan (HYA) drying and hydration were studied using differential scanning calorimetry. In the first approach the isoconversional Kissinger–Akahita–Sunose (KAS) method was applied in order to determine actual activation energies of evaporation of pure water and water from concentrated HYA solutions. Since the evaporation is a single-step process, the activation energies for pure water provided results consistent with tabulated values of evaporation enthalpies. In the course of water evaporation from hyaluronan solution a break in increasing enthalpy followed by a decrease below 0.34 g of water per 1 g of HYA was observed. This result confirmed earlier observati…