Author(s)

Wataru Kouyama¹, Takahiro Nishida¹, Khuat Thi Thu Hien¹, Goro Mizutani^1*, Hiroshi Hasegawa², Hiroaki Miyamura³

¹School of Materials Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Nomi, Japan.
²School of Environmental Science, University of Shiga Prefecture, Hikone, Japan.
³Shiga Prefecture Agricultural Technology Promotion Center, Omihachiman, Japan.

In order to study the correlation between the cracking of rice (Oryza sativa L.) kernels and the molecular structure of the amylopectin in them, we attempted optical sum frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy in the C-H stretching vibration region for normal and cracked japonica non-glutinous rice kernels. The samples were Koshihikari and Nipponbare. In Nipponbare, the width of the SFG spectrum peak at 2915 cm^{- 1} of the cracked rice kernels was broader than that of the normal ones, while for Koshihikari there was no clear difference. The width of the 2915 cm^{- 1} peak is suggested to originate from the variety of the higher-order structure of the saccharide chains in amylopectin. Although this is a tentative result, this method is shown to have a potential of serving for preventing the cracking of the rice kernels.

Rice Kernels, Cracking in Hot Weather, Optical Sum Frequency Generation (SFG), Amylopectin, Non-Glutinous Rice

Kouyama, W. , Nishida, T. , Thu Hien, K. , Mizutani, G. , Hasegawa, H. and Miyamura, H. (2016) Optical Sum Frequency Generation Spectroscopy of Cracked Non-Glutinous Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Kernels. Journal of Biomaterials and Nanobiotechnology, 7, 13-18. doi: 10.4236/jbnb.2016.71002.