Effect of starch retrogradation on molecular dynamics of cooked rice by quasi-elastic neutron scattering

Hirata, Yoshinobu*; Nakagawa, Hiroshi   ; Yamauchi, Hiroki   ; Kaneko, Koji   ; Hagihara, Masato   ; Yamaguchi, Hideyuki*; Omoto, Chie*; Katsuno, Nakako*; Imaizumi, Teppei*; Nishizu, Takahisa*

Crystallinity is reflected in the mechanical properties of foods and materials. Crystallinity should be related to the structural dynamics of starch. In this study, we used quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS) to investigate changes in the molecular dynamics of cooked rice starch during retrogradation. The width of the measured QENS narrowed with retrogradation. The elastic incoherent structure factor (EISF) increased, which indicated that the molecular dynamics are spatially suppressed upon retrogradation. Analysis of EISF with a bimodal continuous diffusion model, where low and high mobilities are assumed to correspond to crystalline and amorphous phases, respectively, showed that the fraction of the low-mobility component increases with retrogradation.