Hello!
I am an MS student and I am working on starch crosslinking. My crosslinking agent has aldehyde groups and the crosslinking reaction occurs through the attach of these aldehyde groups to OH on starch.
I am studying the kinetics of this crosslinking mechanism (rate order, rate constant, A and Ea) right now. I am struggling to find a proper way to do it since we don't know the initial concentration of OH groups in the complex structured starch. I thought I can find the concentration of crosslinking agent with titration. After crosslinking, OH and aldehyde groups will form Acetal groups. I will separate the crosslinked starch film. One will swell in water and the titration will give m the unreacted crosslinking agent. The other will be dissolved in an alkali and this will give me the unreacted and reacted crosslinking agents. However I couldn't find a good procedure for this titration, I mean I cannot find a proper titrant or titration method.
Does anybody have an idea about it?
I'd appreciate any help, because my graduation depends on the result of this experiment
Thanks a lot!