Browsing by Author "Chu, Wai"

Oat beta-glucan, β-glucan, is a soluble dietary fibre located in the endosperm and aleurone cell walls. It is a polysaccharide that has an ability to form viscous gel in aqueous solutions due to its high water binding capacity. The objective of this study was to determine the physical characteristics of commercial oat β-glucan with different purity in solution. Four commercial oat beta-glucan powders with varying β-glucan content were provided for this study. Solubility, water binding capacity, viscosity, suspension and emulsion stability, droplet particle size, particle distribution and zeta potential were determined from the samples. There were two phases in the experimentation part in which the first phase focused on suspensions and the second phase focused on emulsions. There were four different homogenising treatments used to solubilize the samples into water during the first phase of the experiment, which were stirring in room temperature, 80 ˚C, Ultra-Turrax and microfluidization. Megazyme exhibited highest solubility in water with a solubility rate of 100 % regardless of the treatment used. OatWell had the highest water binding capacity (11.7 g/g) after heat treatment. Heat treated OatWell had the highest viscosity (590 mPas). Megazyme emulsions had the highest emulsion stability (TSI ranging from 0.6 to 3.6) as it did not experience phase separation until fifth day of measurement. Megazyme emulsions also had the lowest particle sizes ranging from 0.4 μm to 1.5 μm. The results of this study highlight that the content of β-glucan has notable effect on its solubility and the homogenisation treatment used has an increasing effect on solubility and decreasing effect on water binding capacity and viscosity. Purity of the oat β-glucan also has an effect on emulsion stability as high purity oat β-glucan are able to stabilise emulsion system after homogenisation.