Fine structure impacts highly concentrated starch liquefaction process and product performance

Abstract

Designing a highly concentrated (45 %, w/w) starch liquefaction process is a green method to enhance the productivity of starch syrup and related fermentation products. Previous studies mainly focused on handling highly concentrated normal corn starch slurries, but the production efficiency and product performance cannot perfectly match the conventional liquefaction process (30 %, w/w). In the present research, four starches from various botanical sources were selected with an objective to accelerate highly concentrated starch liquefaction process. The results demonstrated that with potato starch or tapioca starch as a substrate, liquefaction process was more feasible as observed from the obvious reduction in paste viscosity and acceleration in amylolysis. To clarify the mechanism of these differences, changes in the fine structure during liquefaction were further characterized. The long external chains (16.2 glucose units on average) in potato starch and long internal chains (5.1 glucose units on average) in tapioca starch, which indicated high proportion of consecutive α-1,4 linkages, seemed more susceptible to enzymatic attack under highly concentrated substrate condition. This caused rapid degradation of starch molecules. The liquefied products were suitable for glucose syrup production. By comparison, normal corn starch and waxy corn starch, which contain relatively shorter linear fragments, were less accessible to α-amylase. This suppressed liquefaction process led to the survival of large molecules, thereby being unsuitable for subsequent saccharification process. The results suggest that selecting an appropriate substrate is an effective strategy to accelerate highly concentrated starch liquefaction and improve product performance.