ABSTRACT
Native starches are present in semicrystalline granular forms with densities ca. 1.5 g/cm 3 [5]. Granular starch can be solvated to dispersed and amorphous mole cules by heating with plasticizers (mainly water), or by treating them with organic solvents (e.g., dimethylsulfoxide), aqueous alkaline [7], or salt solutions (e.g., CaCl2, KI) [8, 9]. The conversion from crystalline, granular starch to the dispersed and amorphous state is known as gelatinization [ 1 ].
