Hi guys, today I prepared a video about a very simple extraction that is to say starch from cooking potatoes and

its relative test with commercial tincture of iodine. Before starting just two words about starch. it is a natural polymer present in rice, ceral, potatoes and it is a source of energy for living creatures. It is composed of two different polymers: amylose 20% and amilopecten 80 %. Both of them are chains composed of unities of alpha glucose. Here we can see a simplified picture of starch molecule which is much more complex. Now let's get started. The procedure is so simple that also a child could do that without problems. Simply take a one hundred grams potato and peel it. Now simple grate it. Once it's done put it to a beaker with two hundred millimitres of hot water. Now mix for about one-two minutes. Then filtrate with a cook filter to another container. With the lasting part that is to say the grated potato you can repeat the operation several times adding water and mixing, and filtrating again but this is optional. After 5-10 minutes starch, insoluble into water will precipitate out. Here we can see the white precipitate, pure starch. Simply moving the liquid phase to another beaker you will isolate the product. Let it dry at room temperature. Here we can see starch and it appears white, a little bit creamy but after essiccation it will be cristalline. Now, to test it is really starch and not magic powder, we will use some tincture of iodine ( a mix of ethanol, water, potassium iodide and elemental iodine). To test it put some starch into a test tube with some water and shake. After add the tincture of iodine that you can diluite with water or not. However, the solution will become dark blue coloured. What happens is that iodine ions (I3- ) combine to amilose and they make the compound take up this colour. My greetings, see you on the next experiment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMmXm3p48BE http://www.sciencefairadventure.com/ProjectDetail.aspx?ProjectID=167