Radiochemical transformation of mucilage extracted from Opuntia ficus-índica using gamma radiation.

Gamma irradiation is a powerful tool for modifying the physicochemical properties of polymers. Gamma radiation has been widely used to carry out reactions such as crosslinking, depolymerization, and graft copolymerization, with a wide variety of synthetic and natural polymers. Although gamma irradiation proved to be useful to modify the chemical properties of several polysaccharides, this method has not been applied to mucilage.