| Aroma | Sweet, bland or mild taste, about 0.5 to0.6 times the sweetness of sugar, when compared in 5 to 10% strength in aqueous solution. |
| Description | It can be used to lower intraocular pressure and in the postoperationalperiod in ophthalomological procedures as well as during brain edema. |
| Chemical Properties | D-mannitol (D-mannohexan-1.2.3.4.5.6-hexaol) is a constituent of several plantsincluding the Manna ash, several edible plants, and seaweed. Parts of the lattercontain up to 10 % mannitol by weight. The solubility in water is approximately 230 g/L at room temperature and it increases with increasing temperature. Mannitolis stable under the common processing conditions of foods.
Mannitol is approximately 50 % as sweet as sucrose and non-cariogenic.In the European Union, maltitol is approved as E 421 for a large number of foodapplications. In the United States, mannitol produced by hydrogenation of glucoseor fructose solutions or by fermentation by Zygosaccharomyces rouxii or Lactobacillusintermedius is approved for several food applications. It is also approvedin many other countries. |
| Uses | Mannitol is a polyol (polyhydric alcohol) produced from hydrogena-tion from fructose that functions as a sweetener, humectant, and bulking agent. it has low hygroscopicity and poor oil solvency. it has 1.6 kcal/g. it is approximately 22% soluble in water and is approximately 72% as sweet as sugar, exhibiting a cool, sweet taste. it functions as a dusting agent with starch in chewing gum. it is used in sugarless candy, chewing gum, cereal, and pressed mints. |
| Uses | Mannitol also known as wood mellow, is a kind of hexahydrin that can be used as a diuretic or sweetener. |
| Production Methods | There are two main processes for industrial production of mannitol in the world. One is to take kelp as raw material. While producing alginate, the soaking solution of kelp after iodine extraction is obtained through multiple concentration, impurity removal, separation, evaporation concentration, cooling and crystallization; One is obtained from sucrose and glucose by hydrolysis, differential isomerization and enzyme isomerization, and then hydrogenation. China has used kelp to extract mannitol for decades. This process is simple and easy, but its development has been restricted for a long time due to the limitations of raw material resources, extraction yield, climatic conditions and energy consumption. The annual output of mannitol in China in the last century has never exceeded 8000 tons. The synthetic process in China began to be tested in the 1980s and came out in the 1990s. However, it has made great progress because it is not limited by raw materials and suitable for large-scale production. |
| Definition | A soluble hexahydricalcohol that occurs in many plants andfungi. It is used in medicines and as asweetener (particularly in foods for diabetics).It is an isomer of sorbitol. |
| Definition | mannitol: A polyhydric alcohol,CH2OH(CHOH)4CH2OH, derived frommannose or fructose. It is the mainsoluble sugar in fungi and an importantcarbohydrate reserve in brownalgae. Mannitol is used as a sweetenerin certain foodstuffs and as a diureticto relieve fluid retention. |
| Biotechnological Production | The by far largest quantity of mannitol is produced by chemical hydrogenation offructose which yields a mixture of mannitol and sorbitol. The mixture is subjectedto fractionated crystallization. As direct sorbitol production is less costly, theprocessing costs have mostly to be borne by mannitol which makes it moreexpensive than sorbitol. Production from seaweed seems to be of limitedimportance.
Possibilities to produce mannitol by fermentation were studied using severalorganisms. They mostly use fructose as an acceptor for hydrogen and glucose as asource of carbon. In a fed-batch culture of C. magnoliae with 50 g/L of glucose asthe initial carbon source and increasing levels of fructose up to 300 g/L in 120 h, 248 g/L of mannitol were obtained from 300 g/L of fructose equivalent to aconversion rate of 83 % and a productivity of 2.07 g/Lh.High yields were obtained from Lactobacillus fermentum grown in a batchreactor. The conversion rates increased from 25 to 35 C to 93.6 % with averageand high productivities of 7.6 and 16.0 g/Lh. A fast mannitol production of104 g/L within 16 h was obtained from L. intermedius on molasses and fructosesyrups in a concentration of 150 g/L with a fructose-to-glucose rate of 4:1.High productivity (26.2 g/Lh) and conversion rates (97 mol%) were obtained in ahigh cell density membrane cell recycle bioreactor. Increase of the fructose concentrationabove 100 g/L reduced the productivity. A fed-batch process withL. intermedius yielded 176 g/L of mannitol from 184 g/L fructose and 94 g/Lglucose within 30 h. The productivity of 5.6 g/Lh could be increased to more than40 g/Lh at the expense of reduced mannitol yield and increased residual substrateconcentrations.
As mannitol is more expensive than sorbitol, production by fermentation maybecome an alternative to hydrogenation of fructose. |
| Pharmaceutical Applications | Mannitol is a good diuretic in medicine. It can reduce intracranial pressure, intraocular pressure, kidney medicine, dehydrating medicine, sugar substitute, excipient of tablets and diluent of solid and liquid. As a hypertonic antihypertensive drug, Injectio mannitou injection is commonly used in clinical rescue, especially in the rescue of brain diseases. It has the characteristics of fast antihypertensive and accurate curative effect required by drugs to reduce intracranial pressure. After mannitol enters the body, it can increase the plasma osmotic pressure, dehydrate the tissue, and reduce the intracranial pressure and intraocular pressure. After glomerular filtration, it is not easy to be reabsorbed by renal tubules, increase the urinary osmotic pressure, bring out a large amount of water and dehydrate. It is used for edema caused by craniocerebral trauma, brain tumor and brain tissue hypoxia, edema caused by large-area burn, ascites and glaucoma caused by renal failure. It can prevent and treat early acute renal insufficiency. |
| Mechanism of action | Today, mannitol is the most widely used osmotic diuretic. It raises osmotic pressure inrenal tubules, thus reducing reabsorption of water in the nephrons. As a result, a largequantity of free water is released, sodium secretion increases, and as a rule, an insignificantamount of potassium is secreted. Mannitol is used as an adjuvant drug for preventingoliguria and anuriua. |
| Clinical Use | Mannitol is the agent most commonly used as an osmotic diuretic. Sorbitol also can be used for similar reasons.Mannitol is administered intravenously in solutions of 5 to 50% at a rate of administration that is adjusted to maintain the urinary output at 30 to 50 ml/hour. Mannitol is filtered at the glomerulus and is poorly reabsorbed by the kidney tubule. The osmotic effect of mannitol in the tubule inhibits the reabsorption of water, and the rate of urine flow can be maintained. It also is used to reduce intracranial pressure by reducing cerebral intravascular volume. |
| Safety Profile | A poison by intravenous route. Human systemic effects. When heated to decomposition it emits acrid smoke and irritating vapors. |
| Veterinary Drugs and Treatments | Mannitol is used to promote diuresis in acute oliguric renal failure,reduce intraocularand intracerebral pressures, enhance urinary excretionof some toxins, (e.g., aspirin, some barbiturates, bromides,ethylene glycol) and, in conjunction with other diuretics, to rapidlyreduce edema or ascites when appropriate (see Contraindications-Precautions below). In humans, it is also used as an irrigating solutionduring transurethral prostatic resections. |
