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Article: Starch
- Article from:
- Chemistry: Foundations and Applications
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Starch
Starch is the chief storage form of carbohydrate in plants and the most important source of carbohydrate in human nutrition. A starch molecule is a polysaccharide assembled from the simple sugar
glucose
; it can contain anywhere from five hundred to several hundred thousand glucose molecules joined by
covalent bonds
into a single structure. In addition to its importance in human nutrition, starch has many industrial applications: it is used in the manufacture of paper, textiles, pharmaceuticals, and biodegradable polymers, and it is an additive in foods.
Chemically, starch is composed of two different molecules, amylose and amylopectin. In amylose, the glucose molecules are ...