Bp. Hills et al., MICROSTRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION OF STARCH SYSTEMS BY NMR RELAXATION AND Q-SPACE MICROSCOPY, Magnetic resonance imaging, 16(5-6), 1998, pp. 557-564
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxation and q-space diffusion meas
urements have been used to probe the microscopic water distribution in
a variety of starch-based systems, including packed beds of native st
arch granules with varying water contents, starch gels, and freeze-dri
ed starch gels. The q space data for the granular beds is compared wit
h a variety of theoretical models and conforms best to unbounded diffu
sion in a lower dimensional space. In contrast to some earlier reports
, the data for the gelatinized samples are not anomalous and conform t
o simple unrestricted diffusion in a three-dimensional space, The pape
r concludes with a novel method for probing pore size distribution in
freeze-dried starch gels by infusion of acetone. (C) 1998 Elsevier Sci
ence Inc.