Extraction, Modification, and Chemical, Thermal and Morphological Characterization of Starch From the Agro‐Industrial Residue of Mango (Mangifera indica L) var. Ubá

Abstract

The disposal of residues from the agro‐industry and the consequent waste of valuable substances are a problem in Brazil and in many countries. The Ubá mango is the main variety of mango used by the industry in Brazil and its waste, consisting of the peel and the seed, is not used. The seed kernel of the mango is composed mainly of starch, which is a biopolymer capable of replacing fossil origin polymers. In this paper, the starch is extracted from the Ubá mango kernel (78.42% w/w) and it is chemically modified by esterification reaction with octenyl succinic anhydride (OSA). The native starch and modified starch are then characterized using particle size distribution technique, scanning electron microscopy, X‐ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The study shows that the reaction with OSA have a high degree of substitution. Particle size and microscopy results show that modified starch granules have a size range wider than the native starch and the chemical modification process with OSA seems to reduce the crystallinity of the native starch. The chemical and thermal properties of the starch granules are little influenced by the esterification reaction. The OSA starch has many possibilities of applications and an optimized process of extraction and modification has the potential to be implemented in industry.