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Sweet potato cultivation and production in Colombia registers few surpluses for the national market, its yield is approximately 6 t/ha, said production is centered in the Colombian Caribbean region, in the departments of Córdoba and Sucre; However, the cultivation of sweet potatoes could come to occupy an important place for the food industry, due to its nutritional contributions and its high starch content, considered ideal for the industrial production of flours and starches. This investigation studied the physicochemical and functional properties of the starch obtained from two varieties of sweet potato, where the water absorption capacity, maximum viscosity, gelatinization temperature, settling, stability was analyzed. Before the determinations, the samples were dried to constant weight. It was found that the yellow sweet potato starch turned out to be of better quality due to its lower solubility, higher water absorption, higher swelling power and higher gelatinization temperature than the purple sweet potato starch, showing encouraging values for the food industry as thickeners, stabilizers and gelling agents in refrigerated and frozen foods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]