Speaking of the invention of monosodium glutamate, it is purely accidental. 1908 At noon one day, Miyuki Ikeda, a chemistry professor at Imperial University of Japan, sat at the table. Because I finished a difficult experiment in the morning, I was particularly relaxed at the moment, so when my wife brought a plate of kelp and cucumber soup, Ikeda broke away from her usual fast-paced eating habits and slowly tasted it with relish.
Ikeda, this product actually tastes a little bit. He found that today's soup tastes better than others. At first he thought it was because he was in a particularly good mood today. After a few more sips, he felt really fresh. "This kelp and cucumber are very common foods. How can they make such a delicious taste? " Ikeda said to himself, "Well, maybe there is a secret hidden in every belt." Professional sensitivity made the professor enter the laboratory as soon as he left the dinner table. He took some kelp and studied it carefully.
This research is half a year. Half a year later, Professor Ikeda Miaoju published his research results. A chemical called sodium glutamate can be extracted from kelp. If a very small amount of sodium glutamate is added to the soup, it will make the taste extremely delicious.
After Ikeda published the above research results, he turned to other jobs.
At that time, a Japanese businessman named Suzuki Sabouraud Suk was working with others to study the production method of extracting iodine from kelp. As soon as he saw Professor Ikeda's research results, he had a brainwave and immediately changed his mind. "Well, let's not extract iodine. Let's use kelp to extract sodium glutamate!"
Suzuki rang Ikeda's doorbell, and a scholar and a businessman held hands. Ikeda told Suzuki that it is unrealistic to extract sodium glutamate from kelp and sell it as a commodity, because only 0.2 g of this substance can be extracted from kelp per 10/0 kg. However, this substance is also found in protein of soybean and wheat, and sodium glutamate may be produced in large quantities by using these cheap raw materials.
The cooperation between Ikeda and Suzuki soon achieved fruitful results. Soon after, a product named "flavor essence" appeared in a shop in Asakusa, Tokyo, with a big advertisement on it-"Home flavor essence turns white water into chicken juice". For a time, people who bought "essence" almost smashed the door of the shop.
Japanese "flavor essence" soon spread to China. This wonderful white powder touched the heart of chemical engineer Wu. He bought a bottle and went back to study it to see what this white powder was strictly kept secret by the Japanese. A test, the original is sodium glutamate. More than a year later, he independently invented a method for producing sodium glutamate: the glutamic acid content in wheat bran (gluten) can reach 40%. Firstly, he hydrolyzed gluten under pressure with 34% hydrochloric acid to obtain black hydrolysate, which was decolorized with activated carbon and concentrated in vacuum to obtain white crystalline glutamic acid. Then glutamic acid reacts with sodium hydroxide and is concentrated and dried to obtain sodium glutamate.
Wu called his "monosodium glutamate" monosodium glutamate, and he was the first person in the world to produce monosodium glutamate by hydrolysis. 1923, Wu set up a monosodium glutamate factory in Shanghai, and introduced China's "flavor essence"-"bergamot brand" monosodium glutamate to the market. After that, bergamot brand monosodium glutamate not only sold well in China market, but also entered the American market. Wu also won the title of "King of Monosodium Glutamate".
It is uneconomical to produce monosodium glutamate by hydrolysis because it consumes a lot of food. Every time 1 ton monosodium glutamate is produced, at least 40 tons of wheat will be consumed. Moreover, when extracting sodium glutamate, it will release a lot of unpleasant gases, and the hydrochloric acid used will easily corrode machinery and equipment, and will also produce a lot of harmful sewage. Therefore, Japanese monosodium glutamate companies must continue their research work in order to produce better products by better methods.
In this work, Japan's Concord Fermentation Company is at the forefront of its peers. A group of scientists organized by Concord Company found that glutamic acid can also be produced by using sugar and urea under the action of microorganisms. However, because different bacteria will produce different products after reproduction, it is necessary to choose appropriate strains as "small technologists" to produce glutamic acid.
1956, Concord announced that they had found this "little craftsman", which is Brevibacterium. Production of sodium glutamate by fermentation was born. The scientists of Concord made a culture solution with sugar, water and urea, then killed all those miscellaneous bacteria by high-temperature steam sterilization, and then inoculated the cultured pure Brevibacterium in the most favorable environment for their reproduction. Thanks to the efforts of "small craftsmen", most of the sugar and urea were converted into glutamic acid, and finally, it was neutralized into sodium salt.
Using the new method invented by Sheikh Company to produce monosodium glutamate only consumes 3 tons of wheat per ton, which is not only simple to operate, but also greatly reduces the cost and improves the purity and flavor of monosodium glutamate. However, the invention of Concord soon lost its luster.
At the end of 1964, Japan Press selected 10 great inventions of that year in Japan, one of which was "strong monosodium glutamate". Its freshness is actually 160 times that of "Concord MSG"!
The invention of "strong monosodium glutamate" can be traced back to the beginning of this century. At that time, Japanese scientist Dr. Osuke became interested in why mushrooms are so delicious. Like Professor Ikeda from Imperial University, he went into the laboratory to study the ingredients of mushrooms. After analysis, it is found that mushrooms are delicious because they contain a substance called "sodium glucoside". Limited by the technical conditions at that time, I tried many methods, but I failed to make them. Dajie had to stop this futile research.
It was not until the 1960s that a new generation of Japanese scientists re-examined Jing Daole's discovery, because biochemistry developed rapidly at that time and biocatalysis technology was very mature, which could show its talents in this field. In this way, by 1964, there was finally a strong monosodium glutamate with sodium glucoside as the main body.