The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-04-28
CORN-STAR0H sTTGAR.
own pate.

The starch sugar industry in the United
States consumes daily $1,000 bushels of corn
and produces grape sugar and glucose syrup
of the yearly value of ten million dollars
There are thirty factories in the United States,
furnishing their product to brewers and for
the manufacture of table syrup and the
adulteration of cane sugar. 1t is also largely
used in confectionery in canning fruits,
making fruit jelies, and in cooking. Arti
fetal honey is made of it, and so, ALSO is
vinegar.
In France and Germany potato starch is
used instead of corn, the latter country con-
Stunning over 70, 900 tons of starch and making
$1,000 tons of starch sugar. The industry is
an increasing one and is another of the many
contributions of chemical technology to the
wealth of nations. In 1911 Kirchhoff pre-
pared sugar from starch by the present pro-
cess, which consists, in brief of extracting
the pure starch from corn or potatoes trans
forming this into sugar by treatment with
dilute acid, and subsequently neutralizing
the acid, purifying and then concentrating
the product to either glucose syrup or crys-
talline grape sugar By this process ffty-six
pounds of corn will yield thirty pounds
starch sugar, the rest being used for cattle
food, as it is rich in nutritive
matters The corn is stepped in hot water for
several days, ground between buhr stones the
starch separated on silk sleeves, cleaned by al
kaline waters and separated from the waters
by deposition. The conversion into sugar
may be accomplished by various acids In
practice, one and one-half pounds of sulphuric
acid will change 100 pounds of starch into
sugar after short boiling with the dilute
acid The acid mixture is neutralized with
marble dust, decolorized by fltering through
bone-black, and is ready for the market either
as a colorless liquid or as snow-white crystals.
When made into table syrup it is mixed with
cane syrup to give it flavor and tone, the cane
syrup being used much as butter is to give
bovine qualities to oleomargarine For brew
ing it is very imperfect substitute for barley
malt as it is deprived of the heterogeneous
bodies and mineral salts originally contained
in the corn. For the adulteration of brown
cane sugars, grape sugar is added to the ex-
tent of 20 or more per cent. But as the adul
terant is perfectly harmless, nothing is lost ex-
cept in taste, as glucose only has two-thirds
the sweetening power of cane sugar, By no
commercial process can all the starch be
changed into glucose, about per
cent. remaining as intermediate products,
mainly maltese and dextrine which,
though harmless to the human system, have
no sweetening power. The relative quantities
of glucose and intermediate products in any
by the chemist appointed by the government
to investigate and report on the grape sugar
industry, by method first suggested byH.
W. Wiley, while professor of chemistry at Pu1-
due University, in which the varying power of
these dextroses to rotate the plane of polariza-
ton of a ray of light to the right is utilized.
i Ae result Ol tuS llNeSItS5dllOllS maze Dy E1e
National Academy of Sciences, through the
aid of such chemists as Professors Remsen,
Chandler Gibbs, Brewer and Barker, are tab
ulated as follows: First that the making of
sugar from starch is long established indus
try Coming into commercial Importance dur
ing the continental blockade which prevailed
under Napoleon) and is not only scientifically
valuable, but commercially important as
another way of utilizing the corn crop. They
conclude, also, that the processes and the
products are harmless TO health, and that the
starch sugar thus made is very pure and uni
FORM and that, while only having two thirds
the sweetening power of cane sugar. it is in
no way inferior to it in healthfulness, there
being no evidence that maize starch sugar, as
such, or when fermented for brewing, has any
bad effect on the system, even when taken in
large quantities.
Lincoln University.
Many of our readers will remember with what
delight thew listened March 4 in the Second