Starch & Starch Containing Origins: Structure, Properties & New Technologies

This book contains original reviews and research papers presented at the 1st Moscow Conference on 'Starch and Starch Origins-Structure, Properties and New Technologies'. Specialists in different field of knowledge such as biophysics, genetics, food science, organic and physical chemistry engaged in the discussions devoted to different problems of the chemistry and physics of starch, the processing of starches and starch containing raw materials as well as to the problems of selection of starch origins. The first two Sections of the book contain papers collected under the themes entitled 'From macromolecules to starch granules' and 'Starch as polymer and starch gels', respectively. By using different physical and physico-chemical theories, the authors deal with the thermodynamic and structural properties of starch polysaccharides and native starches, with the processes of their structure formation during biosynthesis, as well as with phases and physical states of starch gels and starch containing systems. A close examination of these works shows that the application of different theoretical approaches makes it possible not only to explain existing experimental results but also to predict the behaviour of systems in different conditions and mediums. The last two Sections of the book tackles with 'Non-food application of starches' and 'Starch containing plants and their processing'. A great interest in academy and industry stimulated investigations connected with non-food applications of polysaccharides, including starch. In this part of the book it is possible to observe some triumphs of chemistry, which will give to the reader pleasure. Consideration of the problems of chemistry, physics and processing of starches is unthinkable without knowledge of the problems connected to the cultivation of starch containing plants, opportunities for their deep processing and knowledge of the physico-chemical properties of separate components selected from these plants. Finally, some comments on the state of affairs of Russia membership to WTO are also included.