Quantifying the Best Mathmatical Model for Online Prediction of Starch Gelatinization Degree of Parboiled Rice (Shiroudi Variety) During Soaking of Parboiling Process

The soaking stage is the most important steps of the parboiling process. Hot soaking requires precise control, because starch granules are gelatinized during soaking. Degree of starch gelatinization (DSG) of rice was measured using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). This method has high costs and can not be utilized to obtain online data. Thus, in this study a mathematical relationship correlating the DSG of rice to the paddy physical (paddy moisture) -electrical (electrical conductivity (EC) and capacitance sensor output voltage of paddy water) during the soaking portion of the parboiling process was formulated. For measuring of electrical properties of paddy water was designed and manufactured an experimental system of ohmic heater and capacitance sensor for measuring electrical conductivity and voltage, respectively. For doing experiment, paddy (Shiroudi variety) was parboiled by soaking at 60, 65 and 70 oC. At each temperature, samples of paddy and paddy water were selected at five different soaking times. The experimnet results showed that paddy moisture content (21.18-35.1%w.b.), electrical conductivity (0.63-1.6 mS.cm-1) and output voltage of capacitance sensor (216 – 595 mV) of paddy water and rice DSG (5.5 to 31.7%) increased significantly (p<0.05) and exponentially (R2>0.98), exponentially (R2>0.93), quadraticly (R2>0.95) and exponentially (R2>0.96) during soaking, respectively. Linear relationships were fitted between DSG of parboiled rice and physical-electrical properties of paddy water. The results revealed that EC of paddy water be able to predict the DSG of rice during soaking with the lowest regression error.