Abstract

Granular structure of several wild-type of starches is not well known and the starch isolated from Dioscorea bulbifera (“ñame congo”) is among them. Through its characterization new products could be prepared. Morphometric characteristics, and presence and position of the hilum are signs of starch organization and indicative of the way that they could be used in the industry. The goals were to isolate starch from the edible portion of bulbils of Dioscorea bulbifera L. gathered at the region of Anzoátegui, Venezuela, as well as to characterize its morphometry, hilum and granular distribution. Starch was isolated and purified and its shape, size, distribution granular, and Maltese cross presence were studied by optic polarized light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and laser diffraction. Results show a starch with an eccentric Maltese cross, and a nearly triangular shape, with smooth and polished surfaces, which vary in size in a range of 1-40 microns and agglomerated as a cluster. The granular distribution of the larger population of starch granules with sizes ranging from 7 to 60 μm represent the 93.04 ± 0.25% of the overall population, and the rest represent the 6.96 ± 0.25%, with granule sizes ranging from 1 - 7 μm. The particle size distributions were Dv 10 = 12.67; Dv 50 =24.12, and Dv 90 = 39.86, indicating that 50% of the population is concentrated in a size of ≈25 μm. Those results show that Dioscorea bulbifera´ 's starch is fully characterized for its possible uses in food and other industries.