Columns packed with commercial glass beads 5 and 19 lm average size and a mixture of both (0.7 volume
fraction of large particles) were used to analyse starch composition by hydrodynamic chromatography
(HDC), applying water as mobile phase. To obviate retrogradation, experiments were carried out at
column temperatures of 15 and 3 °C and several types of starch were assayed. In what concerns amylopectin
and amylose separation, a better resolution and a lower pressure drop were obtained for the mixed
binary packing when compared with the packing containing uniform 5 lm glass beads. A more efficient
cooling of the mobile phase was also obtained with the mixed packing, which was determinant for
improving resolution. For the Hylon VII starch the relative retention times (RRT) were 0.777 and 0.964
for amylopectin and amylose, respectively, while for the Tapioca starch the obtained RRTs were 0.799
and 0.923. Application of unbound glass beads as column packing not only might reduce equipment
and running costs in preparative scale separations, but also proved to be useful as a fast and reliable
method to monitor the amylose and amylopectin content of starch samples of different sources.FEDERThe authors wish to thank FCT for the grant provided to Dr. Alexander Yelshin (Yelshyn). This work was developed under the framework of the project POCI-EQU-58337/2004, partially funded by FEDER
