Starch, modified cross-bonding

The starch content of a natural product or of a man-made product may be required. The latter products might contain modified starches, and a limited number are permitted for food purposes acetate, adipate, succinate, oxidized, hydroxypropyl. For nonfood applications cationic and carboxymethyl starches are in common use. Polarimetric methods, when applied to such modified starches, reveal that calcium chloride dissolution is better than the Ewers method. Even with cross-bonded starches, which are difficult to solubilize, complete dissolution is achieved within 30 min with calcium chloride solution. Recovery, based on a universal optical rotation of 203°, is over 95%. While this application of the method needs further verification, several laboratories in an ISO work group report similar findings. 

Of the esters, starch phosphate is produced by reaction with phosphorus oxychloride, polyphosphates, or metaphosphates a cross-bonded product results. Total degree of substitution is determined by measuring the phosphorus content, and the mono- to disubstitution ratio can be calculated by potentio-metric titration. Allowance is made for the natural phosphorus content of the starch. Treatment of starch with acetic anhydride produces starch acetate, which has improved paste stability over native starch. The acetyl group is very labile, and hydrolyses readily under mild alkaline conditions. When a known amount of alkali is used, the excess can be titrated and the ester function measured. This is not specific, however, and a method based on an enzymatic measurement of the acetate has been developed in an ISO work group. The modified starch is hydrolyzed under acidic conditions, which releases acetic acid and permits filtration of the resulting solution. Acetic acid is then measured by a commercially available enzyme test kit. Both bound and free acetyl groups can be measured, and the method is applicable... 

Specific interactions between starch and proteins were observed as early as the beginning of the twentieth century. Berczeller996 noted that the surface tension of aqueous soap solutions did not decrease with the addition of protein (egg albumin) alone, but it did decrease when starch and protein were added. This effect was observed to increase with time. Sorption of albumin on starch is inhibited by bi- and trivalent ions and at the isoelectric point. Below the isoelectric point, bonding between starch and albumin is ionic in character, whereas nonionic interactions are expected above the isoelectric point.997 The Terayama hypothesis998 predicts the formation of protein complexes with starch, provided that starch exhibits the properties of a polyelectrolyte. Apart from chemically modified anionic starches (such as starch sulfate, starch phosphate, and various cross-linked starch derivatives bearing ionized functions), potato starch is the only variety that behaves as a polyelectrolyte. Its random phosphate ester moieties permit proteins to form complexes with it. Takeuchi et a/.999-1002 demonstrated such a possibility with various proteins and a 4% gel of potato starch. 

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