Cereal Chem 41:412 - 423.  |  VIEW ARTICLE

X-Ray Spectrographic Analysis of Chlorine in Bleached Flour and Its Fractions.

K. A. Gilles, E. F. Kaelble, and V. L. Youngs. Copyright 1964 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

Hard red spring and soft red winter wheat flours were bleached with chlorine dioxide and chlorine, respectively. The flours were divided into portions, some of which were not treated further; some were extracted with petroleum ether. Certain flours were fractionated to provide starch, gluten, sludge, lipid, and water-soluble constituents. The flours and their fractions were analyzed for chlorine content by means of X- ray fluorescence spectroscopy. This extremely useful technique is not known to have been applied previously for the analysis of flours. Assuming an even distribution of chlorine in the fat of bleached flour, it was calculated that the lipid and the water-soluble fractions, which normally comprise about 5% of the total flour, contained in excess of 90% of the chlorine which was introduced during the bleaching process. Apart from the lipid and water-soluble portions, gluten was the third most important constituent as a respository of chlorine. However, the amount of chlorine found in gluten was extremely low. When a correction was made for the occluded lipid, no appreciable quantity of chlorine was found to be retained by the starch.