Experimental and Numerical Simulation of Starch Degradation under Sonication Process

Abstract

Abstract Starch processing technology has been developed to enlarge the application of starch in most of food, medical and fermentation industries. Sonication is prominent technology that can alter physical and molecular structure of many material by generating vigorous cavitation which gives radicals and a microjet. Many researches of starch sonication process has been carried out experimentally, but there is only very small number of published works that correlated the experiment data and suitable reaction model. In this study, a reaction model that correlates with experimental results was develop to predict molecular weight, granule size, and conversion of cassava starch. The sonication has simulated with the nth-order reaction model. The result show the reaction was controlled by physical process control. The simulation depict that sonication process can produce a lower molecular weight of starch in very short time. At later time process, the sonication degradation ability was reduced because some part of granule have ability to withstand the cavitation.