Thermal-morphological characterisation of starch from peach-palm (Bactris Gasipaes kunth) fruit (Pejibaye)

ABSTRACTThe objective of this study was to characterize the starch of the peach-palm fruit. The starch was subjected to thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy. The thermogravimetric analysis showed 76.62% of the weight loss in the temperature range from 251.7 to 380.6 oC. The peak in differential scanning calorimetry was obtained at 70.0 oC. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were obtained with a wavelength band of 528 to 3421 cm−1. The x-ray diffraction corresponded to C-type crystals. The granule sizes ranged from 1.60 to 8.48 μm.