Porous starch is a non-toxic and economical adsorbent that has been extensively used in food, pharmaceutical and environmental applications. In recent years, porous starch has drawn more and more attention due to its desirable adsorption and release properties.

Enzymatic catalysis has been widely used to prepare porous starch due to its gentle reaction conditions, high catalytic efficiency, and substrate specificity. This study will focus not only on normal maize starch, which was well studied, but also on understudied starches with potential for novel properties. Unified and versatile hydrolysis parameters were used to assess the enzyme sensitivity acting on granule starches from different sources. Some physical modifications accompanied with enzymolysis were also adapted to seek the possibility to produce optimal B-type porous starches with unique properties. Advanced microscopy techniques were used to avoid damaging the sample as much as possible to observe the enzymolysis reaction under nature conditions.

Another aim of the project is to use porous starches as smart delivery systems for bioactive molecules or as durable adsorption carriers of heavy metals and pigments. Metallic modified solid polymer and binary complex loading could be possible ways to develop these starch-related materials with favorable density, strength, thermal and storage stability.