Cereal starch nanoparticles—A prospective food additive: A review

Starch is one of the most abundant biopolymers in nature and is typically isolated from plants in the form of micro-scale granules. Raw starch has limited applications due to its innate disadvantages such as poor solubility in cold water, tendency to retrograde and high viscosity once it is gelatinized. Therefore, some degree of modification is required to enhance its functionality. Starch nanoparticle is one of the products of such modification. Chemical, enzymatic, and physical treatments are used for the preparation of starch nanoparticles and to study their granular and molecular structures. Characterization of starch nanoparticles on the size distribution, crystalline structure, and physical properties in relation to the starch sources and preparation methods can be done using various characterization tools e.g. Scanning Electron Microscopy, Transmission Electron Microscopy, Atomic Florescence Microscopy, etc. Starch nanoparticles can be used as a food additive as it has adverse range of uses in food such as emulsion stabilizer, fat replacer, Thickener, or rheology modifier etc.