Resumo

HERNANDEZ-URIBE, Juan Pablo; RODRIGUEZ-AMBRIZ, Sandra Leticia  e  BELLO-PEREZ, Luis Arturo. Obtention of fructose syrup from plantain (musa paradisiaca l.) Starch. Partial characterization. INCI [online]. 2008, vol.33, n.5, pp.372-376. ISSN 0378-1844.

Fructose consumption has increased in recent years, substituting for saccharose in several industrial applications. It is usually produced by continuous isomerization of glucose syrup obtained from maize starch. However, due to the considerable increase in cost of maize, it is necessary to search for new sources that could be used as raw material for fructose syrup production. This study reports some physicochemical characteristics of fructose syrup obtained from plantain (Musa paradisiacal L.) starch. The transformation of banana starch to sucrose was carried out in two steps. Starch was enzimatically transformed into glucose, followed by its isomerization into fructose. The isomerization process yielded an average concentration of 63.3mg·ml^-1 of fructose after processing for 80h, representing an average conversion of 41.3%. The color of the fructose syrup, measured in optical density units, showed a high value (1,78) in comparison with the standard value (0.025-0.200) recommended for fructose syrup. This was probably due to a higher ash content (2.07%) than that of commercial syrups. The viscosity of the fructose syrup obtained from plantain starch was lower than in commercial samples. The results show that it is possible to obtain fructose syrup from banana starch with comparable characteristics to those of commercial syrups employing an enzymatic process.

Palavras-chave : Almidón; Plátano; Jarabe Fructosado.