In order to investigate the catalytic properties of alginate lyase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa CF1/M1, a clinical isolate, regarding the capability to perform β-elimination on oligomannuronates of defined length (2–9), the alginate lyase was purified from periplasmic extracts. A purification method for unsaturated and saturated oligomannuronates applying anionic exchange chromatography on a FPLC apparatus was established. The alginate lyase showed the highest activity, when hexamers were provided as substrate. This indicated that the alginate lyase best accommodates a chain of six alginate residues in the active center. As a minimum chain length, the pentameric oligomannuronate was still accepted as substrate. Mannuronate oligomers shorter than the pentamer were not accepted as substrate for alginate lyase. Furthermore, oligomer pattern analysis of polymannuronate which was subjected to β-elimination by alginate lyase revealed that the trimer is the most abundant oligomer. These data indicated that β-elimination and cleavage occurred at mannuronic acid residue no. 3 of the accommodated hexameric alginate chain.