Determination of starch content from milled oak wood (Quercus robur L.)

Starch is a polysaccharide of chemical formula (C6H10O5)n. Its main role is storing reserve food therefore analysing starch in wood can be useful information of physiological properties. Starch can also be used as an adhesive. If the hydrolysis is blocked before all the starch is broken into glucose, dextrin is obtained which can be mixed with water to form an adhesive. In this paper starch content of milled oak wood (Quercus robur L.) was determined by method from Humphreys and Kelly (1961) which uses modified iodine spectrophotometry. Aim of this research was to examine if there are any differences in heartwood (from four different positions in radial direction) and sapwood starch content. Samples used were from five radial positions (from pith to sapwood). One group of samples is from pith, one from sapwood and three from heartwood. On top of position difference, 3 different granulatuions of wood flour were used to examine if there is any difference in starch content. After conducting a preparation, absorption of samples was measured at range of 550 to 650 nm wavelength.