Tapioca is used in the following conversion industries:
1. Tapioca Chip Industry The chips are made from fresh cassava roots which are sliced and sun dried on cement floors for a few days until they become dry. Processing chips can therefore be devided into the following stages:

• a. Wash the cassava roots to remove adhering dirt and particles.
• b. Put the clean roots in the feeding machine (in case that the feeding machine is available) or the root cutter. Slicing the roots by knife blades is also possible.
• c. Sun dry the sliced roots on the floor (drying areas) or other areas covered with a bamboo mat with loose weaves.
• d. During the drying period, the chips should be turned every 1-2 hours by harrow. They can be turned either by hand or by a tractor.

2. Tapioca Pellet Industry Chips are transformed into pellets for convenient storage and low cost of transport. The method of processing pellets by using chips as a raw material is as follows:

• a. Sift the chips to remove adhering dirt and particles.
• b. Sort the chips of which the size exceeds the pelleting machine and feed them in the grinding machine to downsize them.
• c. The ground chips are sprayed by vapor or vegetable oil for possessing suitable moisture content.
• d. Feed the soggy chips in the pelleting machine.
• e. Since the new pellets are hot and soft, they must be ventilated to reduce high temperature and moisture by using the drum and the dryer.
• f. As the cool pellets harden, feed them into the sifter to screen the pellets. The wrong-sized pellets are carried to the repressing process.
• g. Use the dryer to blow the pellets with the right size and store them in a large container. The powered chips which fall down during the pelleting are re-pressed into pellets and the process is repeated.
  The hard pellets have a cylindrical shape. The cylinders are about 1 cm in diameter and about 2-3 cm long and are white in texture. For all these reasons, they are also called "tapioca sticks".

3. Tapioca Starch Industry Fresh cassava roots have a typical composition of 20% starch. Tapioca starch which is extracted from cassava roots and is untreated is called "tapioca starch" or "native starch". The tapioca starch manufacturing process which large and medium-scaled mills are currently applying can be described as the following stages:

• a. Weigh and measure the percentage of starch content of the cassava roots.
• b. Feed the cassava roots in the sand removal drum.
• c. Feed them in the peeling machine & root washer.
• d. Feed the clean cassava roots in the root cutter and then the coarse extractor to separate the pulp from the flour milk. The residue pulp which is separated in the screening process is carried to the drying areas to be produced as pellets or fertilizer.
• e. Use sulfer water to purify the flour milk and to dispose gummy materials so that the white flour milk has a high degree of purity.
• f. Remove the flour milk from the starch by using the dewatering centrifugal.
• g. Dry the starch by the flash dryer with hot air from the burner.
• h. The dried starch is subject to the pulverizing process.
• i. Feed the completely dried and pulverized starch into the sifter to separate crude starch and the finished starch is packaged.

Starch
is native starch of which the pulp is extracted and is used as human food, baby food, seasoning sauce, clear starch noodles, beer, etc. It is also used as thickening and stabilizing agents in such industries as textile, laundry, paper, glue and adhesive, alcohol, acetone, pharmacy, and glucose. Starch can be categorized into 2 types according to its production:
1. Native starch is the powder derived from fresh cassava roots by the process of protein extraction, etc. At present, there are about 85 starch mills but only 49 starch mills are actually in operation. The total capacity of production is 2 - 2.5 million tons per annum. Average production of the whole industry (actual production) is approximately 1.76 million tons per annum.
2. Modified starch is the powder derived from native starch of which the chemical and physical properties are transformed to change its molecules' structure for the applications in various industries. In the tapioca modified starch production, the normal ratio between native starch and modified starch is 1 kg to 0.93 kg.

Flour
is the powder of which the pulp is not extracted. The flour is made by slicing fresh cassava roots, drying the sliced roots in the sun, grinding the roots, and sifting them. Like wheat flour, the finished tapioca flour is used to make pastry and bakery. It can be used to make cake, pancake, bread, cookies, and pie, and it can be the substitution for wheat and rice flour in some kinds of food as well.

Applications of Tapioca Starch as a Prime Raw Material
Flavoring Agent The chemical terms for the flavoring agent in food is called Monosodium Glutamate. MSG industry is utilizing 20% of the total tapioca starch production. Tapioca starch or molasses (by-product of the sugar industry) or the mixture of both are the major raw materials used in the manufacture of MSG. Then, the starch is hydrolyzed into glucose by adding amylase and amyloglucosidase enzymes. Next, add microbiological bacteria called micrococus glutamicus or brevibacterium spp. together with other supplements like urea to convert glucose into glutamic acid by bacterial fermentation. The resulting glutamic acid is treated with caustic soda to produce monosodium glutamate which is then centrifuged and dried in drum dries. The finished product is the flavoring agent called MSG.

High Fructose Syrup 42% (HFS 42)
High Fructose Syrup sweetens and is soluble more quickly than sugar so it can stay fresh all the time. It becomes sweeter at lower temperature or high concentration, or when used in combination with other sweeteners. It's less sweet than sugar with the proportion of 0.8-0.9: 1. However, it can be directly fermented whereas sugar must be treated through the process of hydrolysis into single molecules. Additionally, it is acid-resistant.

70,000 - 80,000 tons of cassava roots containing around 20% starch can be used to produce 15,000 tons of HFS 42. In other words, in producing 1 ton of high fructose syrup, 1 ton of tapioca starch, equivalent to 5 tons of cassava roots, are utilized.

Applications of HFS 42
Today, HFS 42 is applied in various types of industries, for instance, beverage, bakery, dairy products, confectionery (assorted toffee), instant food (meat, seafood, sauce & seasoning and prickles) and canned fruit industries.

Applications of Tapioca Starch as a Composite Raw Material in Other Industries
Textile Industry
Tapioca starch is used in the textile industry. In yarn sizing, starch is applied in to coat the yarns to obtain glossy and smooth thread. It is also used as a lubricant in preventing the single yarns from disintegrating during in-line loom weaving. In addition, starch is used in printing cloth more even while printing. Some factories are still using imported modified starch for weaving because its property is more suitable. Domestic mills, however, started manufacturing modified starch used for weaving.

Plywood Industry
Tapioca starch is applied in the plywood industry because glue is used in plywood binding. Starch, therefore, is used as a raw material for making glue because of its adhesive properties. It is applied to the wood in a stiff, strong and durable way. Plus, it is a way to reduce the cost of making glue because the presence of 50% starch in the glue is used as the component. Starch, moreover, has a special property, that is, the powder is fine so it does not leave any precipitate when it is mixed to make glue.

Paper Industry
In producing paper, pulp derived from pine, bamboo, and eucalyptus wood is used. In the stage of processing the pulp into sheets, the sheets won't be smooth until they are coated with starch. The tapioca starch solution will not only increase the smoothness of the sheet surface but also fill up the pores on the sheets, making the sheet harder for ink or color penetrate. Besides, adhesive in the starch remaining in the finished paper increases the paper strength.

Glue Industry
Starch is filled with a special capacity, that is, when is heated or exposed to chemicals, it will afford high viscosity and stays sticky and stable over a very long period of times. However, only pure tapioca starch with low acid levels called dextrin is used to make glues. These glues will be applied in envelopes, stickers, gummed paper and gummed tape.

Food and Beverage Industries
Starches are basically carbohydrates but tapioca starch plays other important roles in food industry, that is, it serves as a food thickener, stabilizer, binder and filler. Moreover, starch is easy to buy and low in price. It is therefore used to produce glucose, dextrose, baby food, bread, instant confectionery, pie fillings, canned food, noodle, beverages, ice cream, jam, canned fruit, yogurt, sausages, Chinese sausages, sauce, soda for making sweets, and so on.

Seasoning Sauces and Canned Food The paste properties of starch are used to thicken seasoning sauces such as ketchup and canned food so that it won't become precipitates. About 3-4% of the food weight contains starch. Cross-linked and hydroxypropylated instant starches are used in seasoning sauces and canned food whereas confectioneries use hydroxypropylated instant starch due to its solid content properties.

Ice Cream Softness and freezing are characteristics of ice cream. Thus, gum starch is added as the ice cream stabilizer owing to its high-water holding capacity. Apart from its applications in food and beverage industries, tapioca starch is also one of the ingredients for animal compounding, especially as a binder in eel food which contains pregelatinized alpha starch.

Innovative Starch Derivatives
1. Absorbent Material According to R & D on innovative starch derivatives conducted by Mr.Chairat Wiwatworaphan (Thai Tapioca Development Institute, May 25, 1994), an absorbent material, namely, high-water absorbing polymer (HWAP) is a polymer capable of sequestering liquid such as water, electrolyte solution or human liquid from 15 times up to hundreds of times their weight of moisture.
HWAP has a number of applications. For hygienic and medical applications, for example, adult and baby disposable diapers for absorbing body liquid, sanitary napkins, and hygienic nappies used in hospital were developed from HWAP. For agricultural application, a water irrigation system for both plantation and gardening plants make use of HWAP to adjust soil condition in absorbing more water. In industry, HWAP is applied in a thickener for screening ink, water-absorbing material for fuel, and water-repellent material for underground cables. Other applications include liquid for preventing forest fires, insulated paper for controlling moisture and cold pads for reducing high temperature.

2. Biodegradable Plastics From R & D on innovative starch derivatives by Dr.Nipon Wongwisetsirikul and others, the utilization of biodegradable plastics will reach 75% per year. They are useful in a way to prevent our environment from pollution. Biodegradable plastics are replacing plastic in producing food containers. In agricultural area, biodegradable plastics are used to control the release of nutritious substances, insecticide, pesticide and fertilizer. In medical area, biodegradable plastics are useful to control active pharmaceutical materials at a slow and consistent rate. Using tapioca starch as a raw material not only produces biodegradable plastics but also reduces the production cost as well since starches derived from corn and sweet potato cost higher than tapioca starch possessing similar properties.

3. R & D on Cyclodextrin According to R&D on innovative starch derivatives done by Associate Dr.Piemsuk Pongsawat and others, cyclodextrin is another product which makes use of tapioca starch as a raw material. It is formed by the catalyst of Cyclodextrin Glycosyltransferase (CG tase), which can convert substrate starch into cyclodextrin by-product. It can retain flavor, odor, and color conditions, reduce vaporization, increase stability & solution in some substances, including eradicate undesirable substances from the system. It can be used in various types of industries and it is expected that it will be used more extensively.

4. Production of Alcohol Most canvass roots contain starch which can be converted to alcohol called ethanol. Gasohol is car fuel oil achieved through the mixture of ethanol, mixed with benzene at the rate of 10 - 20 : 90 - 80 for ethanol and benzene respectively. This can decrease Thailand's oil imports from abroad, help providing jobs for rural people, and reduce air pollution thanks to unleaded property of gasohol. Ethanol produced from tapioca as alternative fuel oil becomes of great interest. Some countries have launched gasohol projects. For instance, alcohol is produced from crops like sugar cane and tapioca in Brazil and corn in USA.

Scientific and Technology Research Institute, Science and Technology Ministry, have experimented with water-free alcohol production from fresh cassava roots and the effects of gasohol on engine and the results show that no problems have been found. Today, alcohol in Thailand is widely produced from molasses and rice. The main purposes of domestic alcohol production are producing alcoholic drink and for export. There has not been alcohol production for alternative fuel oil yet.

Reference :
THAI TAPIOCA DEVELOPMENT INSITITUTE
1168/26 Lumpini tower 15th floor Rama IV Sathorn Bangkok 10120
Tel: 679-9112-6
Fax: 679-9117