<div>Starch pasting behavior greatly influences the texture of a variety of food products such as canned soup, sauces, baby foods, batter mixes etc. The annual consumption of starch in the U.S. is 3 million metric tons. It is important to characterize the relationship between the structure, composition and architecture of the starch granules with its pasting behavior in order to arrive at a rational methodology to design modified starch of desirable digestion rate and texture. </div><div> In this research, polymer solution theory was applied to predict the evolution of average granule size of starch at different heating temperatures in terms of its molecular weight, second virial coefficient extent of cross-link and electrostatic interaction within a granule. Evolution of granule size distribution of normal maize starch (NMS) and NMS crosslinked to different extents with sodium trimetaphosphate, waxy rice starch, normal rice starch and normal potato starch when subjected to heating at a rate of 15 C/min to 65, 70, 75, 80, 85 and 90 C was characterized using static laser light scattering. As expected, granule swelling was more pronounced at higher temperatures and resulted in a shift of granule size distribution to larger sizes. Most of the swelling occurred within the first 10 min of heating except for potato starch. Novation 1600 (Modified Potato Starch) is also found to shift to larger sizes at longer holding times and higher temperatures, but this shift is found to be gradual and for penpure 80, even at 60 C, the size distribution shifts to smaller sizes at longer holding times indicating breakup of the granule. </div><div> The structure of normal maize starch was characterized by cryo scanning electron microscopy. The number of crosslinks in the starch network was inferred from equilibrium swelling. This is related to peak viscosity and zeta potential of granule for NMS and its crosslinked starches. Chemical potential profile as well as the temperature profile within the granule at different times were predicted which were then employed to evaluate the granule size at different times. The proposed model is able to describe the swelling behavior of different varieties of starch and also the effect of crosslinking. </div><div> The viscoelasticity for different starch types, heating rates, and heating temperatures were characterized. A methodology to predict the storage modulus of starch paste due to granule swelling, given the physical properties of the starch granule is presented. In high-volume fraction regime, classical model for foam rheology enabled calculation of limiting storage modulus for different starches. By scaling the storage modulus with limiting storage modulus, the storage modulus of a wide range of starches forms a master curve. This master curve when employed along with the swelling model resulted in the successful prediction of development of texture for different types of starches. </div><div> In low-volume fraction regime (below 65%), Stokesian dynamics simulations are used to predict the viscoelasticity of polystyrene micro particles and fractionated starch suspension and compared with experiments. Predicted values of storage modulus from stokesian dynamics simulation at 4 HZ for different volume fractions of monodispersed polystyrene spheres of two different sizes namely 25 and 116 micrometer compared well with experimental values. Stokesian dynamics also describes the storage modulus of fractionated starch granules for volume fractions between 0.4 - 0.5</div><div> The average granule size of starch in presence of sucrose was initially increasing and then decreasing with maximum swelling at 5% and 10% sucrose concentration for NMS and WRS. The average granules size continuously increases for WMS and decreases for NRS with increase in sucrose concentration. The Gelatinization Temperature increases with increase in sucrose concentration for all starches. Enthalpy of Gelatinization increases with increase in sucrose concentration for Normal starches where as there is no effect of sucrose concentration for waxy starches. Flory Huggins starch-sucrose interaction parameter was characterized which is used to predict the equilibrium swelling power using a mathematical model proposed to quantitatively describe the equilibrium swelling in the presence of solute (sucrose) based on Flory Huggins polymer solution theory to develop rational guidelines for identification of sugar substitute with desirable functional properties. The model predictions of equilibrium swelling power agrees with experimental results.</div>

Today, the focus lies on the state of the environment and how we can choose more sustainable alternatives to oil based materials. One material of interest is microfibrillated cellulose (MFC).The microfibril exhibits interesting properties, which one is its excellent barrier properties, that is expected to come in good use for the conversion to a more sustainable society. It is believed that the use of biobased barriers will increase with these new materials and MFC is showing promising results. But in order to develop the material to its full potential, it is important to investigate how MFC behaves in different situations, which can be examined with rheological measurements. The aim of the thesis is to examine how the rheological properties of suspensions containing MFC are affected by temperature and time storing and how the learning from this work can be used for influencing dispersion properties. Four samples were investigated, containing different amounts of MFC and modified waxy maize starch. The samples were analyzed with a dynamic rotational rheometer (Kinexus Pro +) with a splined cup and bob. The following steps were included in the method development used in this work: sample preparation, the repeatability, rest time and statistical analysis. An oscillatory shear and steady shear measurement was performed on the samples, and selected samples were studied with microscopy. The results show that the temperature has affected the samples. The shear viscosity of all samples decreased with increasing temperature and the samples followed the temperature dependence of Arrhenius' equation. For samples containing MFC, the structure was affected, and the initial viscosity was not recovered. The complex viscosity did also decrease at the beginning to then suggestively increase, creating a stronger network at higher temperatures. With the raised temperature the bonding between the fibrils became weaker, which in turn made the dispersion less viscous. Then, depending on the applied force, the shear viscosity and complex viscosity acted differently. To conclude, both the shear viscosity and the complex viscosity in these dispersions containing MFC are dependent on the temperature and time storing. By the learnings from this work, a method has been developed to understand how to use temperature and storing time to lower the shear viscosity and lower, or increase, the complex viscosity. / Idag ligger det ett stort fokus på miljöns tillstånd och hur vi kan välja mer hållbara alternativjämfört med oljebaserade material. Ett material av intresse är mikrofibrillerad cellulosa (MFC).Denna mikrofibrill besitter intressanta egenskaper, varav en är enastående barriäregenskaper,som förväntas komma till god användning i omställningen till ett mer hållbart samhälle. Det tros att biobaserade barriärer kommer att användas mer i dessa nya material och här visar MFC lovande resultat. Men för att kunna utveckla materialet till sin fulla potential är det viktigt att undersöka hur MFC beter sig i olika situationer, som kan undersökas genom reologiska mätningar. Syftet med arbetet är att undersöka hur de reologiska egenskaperna för suspensioner innehållande MFC påverkas av temperatur och lagringstid samt hur lärdomen från det här arbetet kan användas för att påverka dispersionsegenskaper. Fyra prover undersöktes,innehållande olika mängd MFC och modifierad majsstärkelse. Proverna analyserades med en dynamisk rotations reometer (Kinexus Pro +) med räfflad kopp och bob. Följande steg ingick i metodutvecklingen som användes i detta arbete: provberedning, repeterbarhet, vilotid och statistisk analys. En oscillerande skjuvning och jämn skjuvmätning utfördes på de olika proverna samt att utvalda prover studerades med mikroskopi. Resultatet visade att temperaturen hade påverkat proverna. Skjuvviskositeten för alla prover minskade med en ökande temperatur och proverna följde temperaturberoendet av Arrhenius ekvation. För prover innehållande MFC påverkades strukturen och startviskositeten återficks inte. Den komplexa viskositeten minskade också till en början för att sedan suggestivt öka, vilket skapade ett starkare nätverk vid högre temperaturer. Med en högre temperatur blev bindningarna mellan fibrillerna svagare, vilket bidrog att dispersionerna blev mindre viskösa. Beroende på den applicerade kraften, verkade skjuvviskositeten och den komplexa viskositeten olika. Slutsatsen var att både skjuvviskositeten och den komplexa viskositeten i dessa prover innehållande MFC beroende av temperaturen och lagringstid. Från lärdomen av arbetet har en metod tagits fram för att kunna använda temperatur och lagringstid för att sänka skjuvviskositeten och sänka, eller öka, den komplexa viskositeten.