Isolation of Amylose from Starch Solutions by Phase Separation

Conventionally, fractionation of the two components of starches, amylopectin and amylose had been achieved by aqueous dispersion or aqueous leaching of granules, and selective retrogradation or alcohol precipitation of amylose. Recently, we found that starch solutions show the same phase behavior as the pseudo‐binary system polystyrene/poly(butadiene) in dioctylphthalate solution. By choosing proper temperature, concentration, and solvent medium, vertical phase separation could be induced in starch solutions. In this article, we show that construction of the phase dia‐gram of the two components of starch solutions provides us with a new simple method for isolating amylose from starch solutions.