Alternative approaches for the estimation of the band broadening parameters in single-detection size exclusion chromatography

Characterization Methods for Starch-Based Materials: State of the Art and Perspectives

Improving starch-containing materials, whether food, animal feed, high-tech biomaterials, or engineering plastics, is best done by understanding how biosynthetic processes and any subsequent processing control starch structure, and how this structure controls functional properties. Starch structural characterization is central to this. This review examines how information on the three basic levels of the complex multi-scale structure of starch – individual chains, the branching structure of isolated molecules, and the way these molecules form various crystalline and amorphous arrangements – can be obtained from experiment. The techniques include fluorophore-assisted carbohydrate electrophoresis, multiple-detector size-exclusion chromatography, and various scattering techniques (light, X-ray, and neutron). Some examples are also given to show how these data provide mechanistic insight into how biosynthetic processes control the structure and how the various structural levels control functional properties.

Size-separation characterization of starch and glycogen for biosynthesis-structure-property relationships

Starch and glycogen are highly branched polymers of glucose of great importance to humans in managing and mitigating nutrition-related diseases, especially diabetes and obesity, and in industrial uses, for example in food and paper-making. Size-separation characterization using multiple-detection size-exclusion chromatography (SEC, also known as gel-permeation chromatography, GPC) is able to furnish substantial amounts of information on the relationships between the biosynthesis, processing, structure, and properties of these biopolymers, and achieves superior characterization for use in industrial product and process improvements. Multi-detector SEC is able to give much more information about structure than simple averages such as total molecular weight or size; the detailed information yielded by this technique has already given new information on important biosynthesis-structure-property reactions, and has considerable potential in this field in the future. However, it must be used with care to avoid artifacts arising from incomplete dissolution of the substrate and shear scission during separation. It is also essential in interpreting data to appreciate that this size-separation technique can only ever give size distributions, never true molecular weight distributions. Other size-separation techniques, particularly field-flow fractionation, require substantial technical development to be used on undegraded native starches.

How much does band broadening adulterate results deduced from chromatograms measured by size-exclusion chromatography really?

A number of polystyrene samples and standards were measured with several column combinations which differed in their extent of band broadening, sigma(BB). Comparison of the derived chain length distributions showed in some cases good agreement even despite strong distinctions in the determined sigma(BB) values. The calculated number and weight averages of the samples were almost identical in most cases for the column combinations used. Furthermore, the points of inflection of the standards and of multimodale distributions composed of narrow (Poisson like) peaks in microemulsion were examined. When conferred with the theoretical values which were calculated for assumed Poisson distributions the respective deviations from the "true" ones were as high as 10% (almost reaching 20% in unfavorable cases). Simple (correction) procedures were tested in order to obtain the actual average values as well as the effective points of inflection of narrow distributions.

Estimation of band broadening in size-exclusion chromatography. I. A method based on analyzing narrow standards with a molar mass-sensitive detector

A method is proposed for estimating the (asymmetrical and non-uniform) band broadening function (BBF) in size-exclusion chromatography (SEC). The following data are required: the molar mass calibration and the concentration- and molar mass chromatograms of a set of narrow standards. In the narrow range of each standard, the BBF is uniform but skewed. Each uniform BBF is estimated through a nonlinear optimization procedure that compares one (of the two) measured chromatograms with its theoretical prediction based on the other chromatogram. The method is validated with numerical examples that simulate the analyses of narrow standards exhibiting log-normal and Poisson weight chain length distributions. The BBF can be assumed of arbitrary shape, or represented by an exponentially-modified Gaussian (EMG). From the uniform BBF estimate, the true polydispersity of the standard can be determined. The global non-uniform BBF is obtained by interpolation between a set of uniform BBFs covering a wide range of elution volumes.