Determination of starch gelatinization temperatures by an automated headspace gas chromatography

This paper reports on an automated temperature-programmed headspace GC technique for the determination of gelatinization temperature of starch. 1-butanol was used as a tracer and added to the starch-solution for the test. Based on measuring the GC signal of 1-butanol in the headspace with the temperature increasing, two transition points (corresponding to the onset temperature and the ending temperature of starch gelatinization) were observed by plotting the GC signal of 1-butanol vs. the temperature. The results showed that the method has a good measurement precision (the standard deviation < 1 °C) and accuracy (the average relative differences = 3.9%, compared to a standard reference method). The present method is simple and suitable for the gelatinization temperature testing for starch samples.