David Wetzel and Yong-Cheng Shi of Kansas State University, USA, and John Reffner from John Jay College, City University of New York, USA have applied microscopic chemical imaging to single modified starch granules. Starch manufacturers can use this to determine if the modifying agent used in the production process is uniformly distributed across individual modified starch granules. Mark Boatwright, a K-State graduate research assistant in grain science and industry assisted with data processing for the study.

Wetzel said the techniques developed in the study can be used in industry, not only for food—the largest industry for starch—but also for papermaking, corrugated board adhesives, clothing/laundry starch, body powder and as a viscosity adjuster for drilling fluid used in oil exploration, among other uses.

"From the industrial standpoint, modified starch is big business. It's modified to provide emulsifying properties to suit a particular use," Wetzel said.

"Now, we can basically show that anyone dealing with starch or any other particle of material that's microscopic in size and that suspects chemical heterogeneity can follow the same lead and use the same technique to check."

Analysis of a single granule (diameter about 15 µm) required the use of the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, NY, and the facility's advanced synchrotron infrared microscope.

"We used this high technology to accomplish this supposedly impossible task," Wetzel said. "But, as it turns out, this task was achievable. Either nobody else has been successful, has thought of it or has been crazy enough to attempt this," Wetzel said with a laugh. "We were the first."

The results were reported in the March 2010 edition of Applied Spectroscopy (doi: 10.1366/000370210790918355).

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