Starch Nanoparticles: Their Preparation and Applications
The word “nano” originates from the Greek term “dwarf.” Nanoparticles are generally recognized as those with a particle size below 100 nm which enables novel applications and benefits. Materials and devices with nanostructures have different properties fr
- PDF / 397,653 Bytes
- 20 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 20 Downloads / 185 Views
11
Kawaljit Singh Sandhu and Vikash Nain
Abstract
The word “nano” originates from the Greek term “dwarf.” Nanoparticles are generally recognized as those with a particle size below 100 nm which enables novel applications and benefits. Materials and devices with nanostructures have different properties from the materials they are made. Starch is a widely available, abundant biopolymer produced in plants by the process of photosynthesis and stored in the form of granules. The starch granules are in microsize which can be broken down into nanosize using different nanotechnological methods. These nano-sized particles are safe for human health and are increasingly utilized in food and nonfood industries. Nanotechnology, in general, is making the most significant progresses in biomedical application, including novel drug delivery practices in which starch nanoparticles can be used as drug carriers. Other potential applications of starch nanoparticles include their use in waste water treatment where they can replace the costly activated carbon as adsorbents. It has also attracted interest as a packaging material due to its better barrier properties. Their addition in natural rubber matrix improved barrier and mechanical properties and thus they are used commercially in tire making. Recently starch nanoparticles are found to have applications as fat replacers and emulsion stabilizers. Due to growing interest in starch nanoparticles, in the last decade, various methods have been developed for their synthesis. Acid hydrolysis, regeneration, and physical methods are widely used for the preparation of starch nanoparticles.
K.S. Sandhu (*) • V. Nain Department of Food Science and Technology, Chaudhary Devi Lal University, Sirsa 125 055, Haryana, India e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017 S.K. Gahlawat et al. (eds.), Plant Biotechnology: Recent Advancements and Developments, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4732-9_11
213
214
K.S. Sandhu and V. Nain
11.1 Introduction Starch is a widely available renewable biopolymer that is produced by photosynthesis in plants and a major source of energy for humans. It is made up of two components: amylose, a linear or slightly branched (1 → 4)-α-D-glucose units, and amylopectin, an extremely branched molecule in which glucose is linked with α-(1 → 4) and α-(1 → 6) linkages (Paris et al. 1999). Starch granules are made up of nano-sized blocklets having starch chains in semicrystalline organization (Oates 1997). Various methods have been used by researchers to study the starch structure, such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, microfocus X-ray diffractions (Waigh et al. 1997), and microfocus small-angle X-ray scattering (Waigh et al. 1999; Suzuki et al.1997). The results from these methods revealed that starch granules possess a structure of alternatively arranged crystalline and semicrystalline layers. Gallant et al. (1997) reported blocklets in starches, with those possessing B- and C-type crystalline structures having l
Data Loading...
