Rheological, thermal properties, and gelatinization kinetics of tapioca starch-trehalose blends studied by non-isothermal DSC technology

In this paper, we studied the effects of trehalose on the rheological and thermal properties of tapioca starch (TS). Temperature sweep experiments showed that trehalose shifted the peak gelatinization temperature (TG'max) to higher value. Rheological features calculated from the power law model indicated that trehalose addition increased the consistency and decreased the thixotropy of TS gels. DSC experiments showed that trehalose retarded the gelatinization of TStrehalose blends reflected in the increase of gelatinization temperature. The gelatinization kinetics was evaluated by a non-isothermal technique based on the DSC endotherms. Kinetics analysis showed the addition of trehalose increased the activation energy and decreased the rate constants of TStrehalose blends, indicating the same sugar effect as the rheological and DSC experiments. The work demonstrated that kinetics analysis could provide new evidences for the influence of trehalose on starch gelatinization.