The steep water was then drained off, and the slurry was ground in a laboratory blender. The ground slurry was screened through a 200-mesh sieve. The material remaining on the sieve was washed thoroughly with distilled water. The filtrate slurry was allowed to stand for 3 h. The supernatant was then removed, and the settled starch layer was resuspended in distilled water and centrifuged in wide-mouthed cups at 1200g for 20 min. The upper non-white layer was scraped off. The white layer was resuspended in distilled water and centrifuged at 1200g for 15 min. The upper non-white layer was scraped off
again, and the starch was collected and dried in an oven at 40 °C selleck screening library for 12 h. The starch isolation yield was approximately 24%, and the protein, ash and lipid contents in the native starch were approximately 0.43%, 0.14% and 0.19%, respectively, on a dry basis. Starch oxidation was performed according to the method described
by Wang and Wang (2003), with some modifications. A 35% starch slurry was prepared by adding deionised water to 200 g of starch (dry basis) to a final weight of 571 g in a 2 l reaction vessel and mantle. The starch slurry was maintained at 35 °C by occasionally turning off the mantle heating power, and the pH level was adjusted to 9.5 with 0.5 N NaOH. Twenty grams of sodium hypochlorite (1 g of active chlorine and 200 g of starch resulting in 0.50% active chlorine, w/w) was slowly added to the starch slurry over a period of 30 min while maintaining the pH level at 9.5 with 1 N HCl. After the addition of sodium hypochlorite, the pH value selleck chemicals llc of the slurry was maintained at 9.5 with 1 N NaOH for an additional 50 min. The slurry was then adjusted to a pH value of 7.0 with 1 N HCl, filtered by suction with a Buchner filter funnel (Whatman filter No. 4), washed
with a twofold volume of deionised water and dried in a convection oven at 40 °C for 24 h. The same procedure was applied for different active chlorine concentrations (0.50%, 1.0% and 1.5%; w/w). The carbonyl content was determined Dimethyl sulfoxide according to the titrimetric method as described by Smith (1967). A starch sample (2 g) was added to 100 ml of distilled water in a 500-ml flask. The suspension was gelatinised in a boiling water bath for 20 min, cooled to 40 °C, and adjusted to a pH value of 3.2 with 0.1 N HCl. A hydroxylamine reagent (15 ml) was then added to the mixture. The flask was stoppered and placed in a 40 °C water bath for 4 h with slow stirring. The excess hydroxylamine was determined by rapidly titrating the reaction mixture to a pH value of 3.2 with standardised 0.1 N HCl. A blank determination with only the hydroxylamine reagent was performed in the same manner. The hydroxylamine reagent was prepared by first dissolving 25 g of hydroxylamine hydrochloride in 100 ml of 0.5 N NaOH, before the final volume was adjusted to 500 ml with distilled water.