ABSTRACT
Starch is one of the most versatile macromolecules and can be found in many plants. It typically has two major components and appears as a mixture of two glucosidic macromolecules very dissimilar in structure and properties: largely linear amylose of molecular weight between one thousand and one million, consisting of α-(1 → 4)-linked d-glucose, and amylopectin, having the same backbone as amylose but with a myriad of α-(1 → 6)-linked branch points (Dufresne and Vignon 1998). Virgin starch is brittle and difŠcult to be processed into particles due to its relatively high glass-transition temperature (Tg, ≈230°C) (Yu et al. 1996), which is even above the thermal degradation temperature (Wang et al. 2003). The other limitations of native starch are lower thermal resistance, shear resistance, and proneness to retrogradation.
