The synthesis of glycogen-g-polyacrylamide (Gly-g-PAM) was carried out by a ceric ion-induced solution polymerization technique. Six grades of graft copolymers were synthesized by the variation of catalyst and monomer concentrations. These graft copolymers were characterized by intrinsic viscosity measurements, FTIR spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction techniques. Flocculation performance of these graft copolymers were done in kaolin suspension. Of the above grades, the graft copolymer Gly-g-PAM 5, which has longer PAM chains, showed best flocculation performance. The flocculation performance of the graft copolymer was compared with commercial flocculants and other PAM-grafted flocculants developed so far in the authors' laboratory. In all the cases, it was found that the graft copolymer performed the best. (c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.