PhD ceremony Mr. J.W.J. Miel: Synthesis and application of hydrophobized waxy potato starch

PhD ceremony: Mr. J.W.J. Miel

Dissertation: Synthesis and application of hydrophobized waxy potato starch

Promotor(s): prof. A.A. Broekhuis

Faculty: Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Starch is known to the public as a component in food. However, starch is also applied in many industrial applications. Usually, the starch is used as a binding agent. In almost all cases, starch is somehow modified; physically or chemically.

The thesis ‘Synthesis and application of hydrophobized waxy potato starch’ describes the research in which it was investigated if starch, which is a renewable resource, to replace an oil-based adhesive. This oil-based adhesive contains predominantly hydrophobic (water repellant) compounds. During the investigation, several different hydrophobic functional groups were therefore introduced into the starch through chemical reactions. This resulted in changes in the properties of the starch, for example the interaction between starch and water, but also the viscosity of the aqueous solutions of the products. It was shown that under certain conditions, it was possible to replace the oil-based adhesive by starch while the properties of the final product remained intact.