Starch-containing plants

The Indians in the Americas knew about beet long before the Europeans settied there (2,3). The South American Indians brewed a variety of starch-containing plants, eg, batate, com, yams, peanuts, banana, and manioca. 

Starch-containing plants Another potential ethanol feedstock is starch. Starch molecules are made up of long chains of glucose molecules. Hence, starch-containing materials can also be fermented after the starch molecules have been broken down into simple glucose molecules. Examples of starchy materials commonly used around the world for ethanol production include cereal grains, potatoes, sweet potatoes and cassava. Typical cereal grains commonly used for ethanol production in the EET are rye and wheat. 

The polysaccharide starch is found in most plants as a storage compound however, only five plants, namely maize, rice, wheat, potatoes, and cassava account for the majority of worldwide produced starch-containing plants. Roughly 2.7 billion tons of these crops are annually harvested. The class of sugar-containing crops contains only two plants namely sugar cane and sugar beet of which about 2 billion tons are... 

Warren J. Frederick, Royall G. Paul, Butterworth J. Peter, and Ellis L. Peter. Immersion mode material pocket dynamic mechanical analysis (IMP-DM A) A novel tool to study gelatinization of purified starches and starch containing-plant materials. Carbohydr. Polym. 90 no. 1 (2012) 628-636. 

Glycogen is the major storage carbohydrate in animals, corresponding to starch in plants it is a branched polymer of a-D-glucose. It occurs mainly in liver (up to 6%) and muscle, where it rarely exceeds 1%. However, because of its greater mass, muscle contains about three to four times as much glycogen as does liver (Table 18—1). 

Although the basic chemistry of starches is the same in every plant, the starches of different plants are different to each other. Potato starch contains about 21% of... 

Plants and some algae store food in the form of starch. In plants, starch is mainly found in seeds, roots, and tubers as well as in stems, leaves, fruits, and even pollen. Grain seeds, such as corn kernels, contain up to 75% starch. Therefore, it is an important component of the carbohydrates in the diet and a very good source of energy for the body. Starch is found in foods such as cereal, pasta, and potatoes, and cornstarch is used to thicken sauces. Laundry starch is a liquid form of starch used to stiffen the collars and sleeves of shirts. An advantage of using it is that dirt and sweat will stick to the starch instead of the shirt textile fibers, with the result that collar rings are easily washed away with the starch. 

Statches ftom different plant sources differ in their amylose/ amylopectin ratio. For example, com starch contains about 27% amylose, potato starch about 22%, and tapioca statch about 17%. In contrast, waxy com statch contains almost entirely amylopectin, with no amylose. These diffetences modify the physical properties of the statches such that the various types may not be interchangeable in a given pharmaceutical application. For example, amylose-rich maize starch has been studied as a potential tablet film-coating ingtedi-... 

Common natural starch contains less of amylose than the amylopectin one, and 3-25% of the former is wrapped within a framework of the latter. Composition of starches from different plants with respect to the above two classes are shown in Table 5.23b. 

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