Impact of granule-associated lipid removal on the property changes of octenylsuccinylated small-granule starches

Starch granule associated lipids (GALs) are known to alter the properties and functions of small granule starches. To test the hypothesis that the removal GALs from small granule starches could increase the overall reactive surface and improve octenyl-succinylation (OSA) modification efficiency, four small granules starches from rice, oat, quinoa, amaranth and a waxy maize starch were subjected to defat, OSA esterification and combined defatted and OSA treatment. The combined treatment showed a significant improvement in the degree of sub-stitution for all starches from both tritration and 1H NMR methodologies. Confocal microscopy revealed a more uniform distribution of OSA groups on the starch surface. After GALs removal, the bimodal granule size distri-bution was diminished but reappeared during OSA modification. Pasting viscosity increased for the OSA and GALs removed quinoa, waxy maize and amaranth starches, but it decreased on modified rice and oat starches. OSA treatment alone significantly altered the gelling and rheological properties towards a more soft and less stable starch structure. The combined treatment compensated these changes to some extent and filled the property gap between the native and OSA modified starches. This study demonstrated that removing GALs can achieve more profound OSA derivatization.