Whats the best way to figure out the ratio of sugar, starch and cellulose in plant? The sugar part is easy, but starch seems hard to separate from cellulose and properly quantify. Is there an easy chemical process that could be performed that destroys one but not the other? Something like: grind plant into bits, heat gently with sulfuric acid solution to hydrolyze starch to sugar, and leave the cellulose as insoluble? For sugar I figure this: 1. Kill plant and deactivate enzymes with heat real quick (possibly difficult?) 2. Grind to sawdust/whatever, extract sugar with water, allow to evaporate - separate out oils with solvent that doesnt dissolve sugars.. take weight of sugar and figure out the percent from original mass. Starch... Thats difficult. How does one dissolve or destroy the starch but not the cellulose? Would heating the remaining starch/cellulose to turn the starches into dextrins be a decent method? Those I believe are soluble and created at temperatures that do not destroy or convert cellulose into a soluble product.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Apr 2014 10:43:25 +0000
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