International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Science (IJAERS) Peer-Reviewed Journal ISSN: 2349-6495(P) | 2456-1908(O) Vol-8, Issue-9; Sep, 2021 Journal Home Page Available: https://ijaers.com/ Article DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijaers.89.17 www.ijaers.com Page | 160 Optimization of isolation parameters for starch extraction from Amaranthus paniculates (Rajgeera) using response surface methodology Pooja Yadav, Dr. John Don Bosco Department of Food Science and Technology, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, India Received: 21 Aug 2021, Received in revised form: 09 Sep 2021, Accepted: 15 Sep 2021, Available online: 23 Sep 2021 ©2021 The Author(s). Published by AI Publication. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Keywords— Amaranthus paniculates, Pseudo-cereal, response surface methodology, Starch yield, NaOH concentration Abstract— Amaranthus paniculates is a pseudo-cereal. It is a potential reservoir of starch and the properties of end-use product are dependent on the starch. As the major component in Amaranthus paniculates is starch it is very necessary to standardize the process for starch isolation for the maximum recovery of starch with minimal impurities. The study was aimed to improve the isolation parameters for the starch extraction using response surface methodology (RSM). The NaOH concentration (0.00 - 0.75 %), sieve mesh size (100 - 300) and steeping time (1 - 24 hrs) were taken as independent variables and starch yield (%), protein (%) and fat (%) were taken as optimizing responses. Quadratic model was used to evaluate the results. The process was optimized at 0.375 % of NaOH concentration, sieve of 300 mesh and steeping time of 24 hrs for the desired results i.e starch yield (39.91%), protein (0.87%) and fat (0.53%) with a desirability level of 1.00 I. INTRODUCTION India is an agricultural country and plenty of food grains are grown here, Amaranth is one of them. It belongs to family Amaranthaceae and has more than 60 species out of which Amaranthus paniculates, Amaranthus hypochondria, Amaranthus cruentes, and Amaranthus caudatus are the essential grain species (Brenner et. al., 2000 ; Narender Kumar et. al., 2013). Amaranthus paniculates is a tall annual herb and is a flowering plant species. Starch accounts for 50% to 69% depending on the species. Starch is the major component of Amaranthus paniculates. The major reserve polysaccharide in plants is starch and plays a crucial role in the food industry especially in the bakery industry (Teli et. al., 1996). Starch is a semi-crystalline, white, tasteless and odorless powder that is composed of several amylose and amylopectin linkages branched complexly. Starch forms the major source of carbohydrates in dietary seeds, cereals, legumes, pseudo-cereal and in the parts of plants like tubers, roots, leaves, stems, etc. (Kumar N et. al., 2013). The amylose and amylopectin content of the starch varies with the source of starch and therefore the chemical composition, properties and the structure of starch vary as well. The shape and size of the starch granules is also different for each variety. The importance of starch as a food ingredient is evident from the fact that it forms 30% of the average diet and on a dry weight basis and more than 25% on an available energy basis (Galliard, 1987). Starch is a highly versatile food ingredient that is used as an additive in the form of an emulsifier, stabilizer and thickener (Rengsutthi, 2011) in various food formulations in daily life. It has extremely small granules and has low amylose content and has 90-95% of amylopectin which provides excellent freeze/thaw stability. Due to the presence of high amount of amylopectin, the higher value of enthalpy change is observed. Amaranth starch has good swelling power because of high amylopectin content. Gelation properties are interrelated to the water absorption capacity, amaranth has a good gel formation capacity because the water absorption capacity of amaranth starch is good (Sindhu et al,2016). Amaranth