Simultaneous, rapid, spectrophotometric determination of total starch, amylose and amylopectin

Abstract
A novel spectrophotometric method for the simultaneous measurement of total starch, amylose and amylopectin in lipid‐free samples has been developed using a diode‐array spectrophotometer. It involves measurement of the spectrum of the amylose/amylopectin‐iodide complexes at six wavelengths and calculation of amylose and amylopectin concentrations using multi‐component analysis and a spreadsheet computer program. This method appears to offer some advantages to previous ‘iodine‐blue colour’ assays for the measurement of amylose.