1 This is the final draft post-refereeing. 1 The publisher’s version can be found at http://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0733521014001684 2 Please cite this article as: Rombouts, I., Jansens, K. J. A., Lagrain, B., Delcour, J. A., Zhu, K.-X.. 3 The impact of salt and alkali on gluten polymerization and quality of fresh wheat noodles. Journal 4 of Cereal Science. 2014. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcs.2014.09.003 5 6 The impact of salt and alkali on gluten polymerization 7 and quality of fresh wheat noodles 8 Ine Rombouts 1* , Koen J.A. Jansens 1,2 , Bert Lagrain 1,3 , 9 Jan A. Delcour 1,4 , Ke-Xue Zhu 1,5 10 11 1 Laboratory of Food Chemistry and Biochemistry, Leuven Food Science and 12 Nutrition Research Centre (LFoRCe), KU Leuven, Kasteelpark Arenberg 20, box 13 2463, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium. 14 * Corresponding author 15 Fax: +32 16 32 1997. Tel: +32 16 32 1634. E-mail: 16 Ine.Rombouts@biw.kuleuven.be 17 2 E-mail: Koen.Jansens@biw.kuleuven.be 18 3 Present address: Centre of Surface Chemistry and Catalysis, KU Leuven, 19 Kasteelpark Arenberg 23, box 2461, B-3001 Heverlee. E-mail: 20 Bert.Lagrain@biw.kuleuven.be 21 4 E-mail: Jan.Delcour@biw.kuleuven.be. 22 5 State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology, School of Food Science 23 and Technology, Jiangnan university, 1800 Lihu Avenue, Wuxi-214122, Jiangsu 24 Province, P. R. China. E-mail: kxzhu@jiangnan.edu.cn 25 26 Key words 27 Chinese noodles; kansui; cooking loss; β-elimination 28 29