Effect of high-pressure microfluidization on the structure of cassava starch granule

Microfluidization has been applied to modify starch granules. The study was conducted to investigate the effect of microfluidization on the structure and thermal properties of cassava starch-water suspension (20% w/w). The means of optical microscopy, SEM, FTIR spectroscopy, XRD, and DSC were applied to analyze the changes in microstructure, crystallinity, and thermal property. Microscopy observations revealed that native starch granules were oval, round, and truncated in shape. After the microfluidization treatment, a bigger starch granule was partially gelatinized, and a gel-like structure was formed on a granular surface. No significant difference in XRD patterns of the samples were observed and all samples exhibited A-type allomorph. Crystallinity decreased with the pressure. Sample treated at 150 MPa contains 17.1% crystalline glucan polymer, lower than that of native granules which have crystallinity of about 25.8%. A lower crystallinity means poor order of crystalline glucan polymer structure in starch granules. The disruption of crystalline order within the granule was also observed by FTIR measurement. Thermal analysis using DSC indicated that the microfluidization treatment brought about a significant decrease of melting enthalpy. The gelatinization enthalpy was 12.0 and 3.0 J/g for the native sample and samples treated under the 150 MPa, respectively. The results indicate that high-pressure microfluidization process induced the gelatinization of cassava starch, which is evaluated by a percentage of the degree of gelatinization, due to a pronounced decrease with increasing microfluidizing pressure.