Abstract:The effects of sodium alginate on the complex coacervation of O-carboxymethyl chitosan/gum Arabic and the resultant coacervates were investigated and the compounds were characterized with the purpose of obtaining new tertiary complexes with improved functional properties.The results demonstrated that the addition of sodium alginate had no significant effect on the optimum reaction conditions，which were as follows：pH3.0；O-carboxymethyl chitosan ∶gum Arabic-sodium alginate mass ratio 1∶4，temperature 25 ℃，and reaction time 1 h.The sodium alginate content affected the microstructure of the O-carboxymethyl chitosan/gum Arabic-sodium alginate coacervates.With increasing sodium alginate content，the network structure of resultant coacervates became denser.The O-carboxymethyl chitosan/gum Arabic coacervates containing sodium alginate were pseudoplastic and mostly demonstrated elastic properties，which was of great significance for developing polysaccharide/polysaccharide coacervation systems with improved functions.