Recent progress in chemical modification of starch and its applications

Starch has received much attention as a promising natural material both in biomedical fields and waste water treatment due to its unique biological and adsorptive properties. Recently, the modification of starch is rapidly developed along with its growing applications. This review focuses on the ways of chemical modification of starch including cross-linking, grafting, esterification, etherification, dual modification and so on, and presents the applications of the modified starch in fields like drug delivery, tissue engineering and heavy metal and dye removal.