Maize Starch Powder

Starch is one of nature’s major renewable resources and a mainstay of our food and industrial economy. Maize or Corn Starch is a typical cereal starch with distinctly low protein and ash contents. The grain is quite nutritious, with a high percentage of easily digested carbohydrates, fats and proteins and hardly any deleterious substances.

Maize Starch has four major properties that make it useful in food and industrial applications. The first property, thickening, gives many food products such as puddings, gravies, sauces and pie fillings their desired consistency. This property is also useful in many industrial starch applications. The second useful physicochemical property is the ability of the starch paste to disperse and suspend other ingredients or particulate matter. In many foods, fats and proteins are suspended and/or emulsified in starch pastes. In the manufacturing of paper and adhesives, clay particles are suspended in thick starch pastes.

When maize starch pastes are allowed to cool, they thicken and can congeal into a semisolid gel. The third useful property, gel formation, provides the body typical of starch-based puddings, salad dressings and some types of adhesives. The fourth useful physicochemical property of starch paste is its ability to produce strong adhesive films when spread on smooth surfaces and dried. The major industrial uses of powdered corn starch, such as paper coating and sizing, textile sizing, corrugated board manufacture and all adhesive applications utilize this property