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Browsing by Subject "fat crystallization"

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  • Kinnunen, Eveliina (2020)
    Infant formulas are breast milk substitutes for 0 to 12-month-old infants. Addition of milk fat to infant formulas leads to an increase in solid fat content. Infant formulas are oil-in- water emulsions in which oil is dispersed into a continuous aqueous phase. Milk fat crystallization leads to partial coalescence and creaming which are types of instability in emulsions. Partial coalescence occurs when two droplets containing crystals collide and they partially coalesce by making contact between their oil phases. The aim of this thesis was to study if milk fat crystallization leads to partial coalescence which leads to a higher rate of creaming or the increasing density of crystallizing droplets leads to a lower rate of creaming. Also, the aim was to study the effect of interfacial layer on partial coalescence. Milk fat crystallization and emulsion stability were investigated from four series of oil-in- water emulsions containing different oils in different concentrations and either whey protein or lecithin as stabilizer. The samples were stored at 5, 20 and 40 °C and measured after 0, 7 and 28 days of storage. The crystallization of bulk fat and oil in emulsions were studied with melting enthalpies measured with differential scanning calorimetry. Emulsion stability was examined with particle size distribution, instability index and creaming velocity measurements. According to the results combining vegetable oil and butter oil, and emulsifying the fat decreases the total enthalpy change and crystallization onset temperature of oils. Mixing vegetable oil and butter oil before homogenization decreased crystallization onset temperature and total enthalpy change because the oils were in same droplet, and made the emulsions behave more like vegetable oil emulsions. Mixing the oils after homogenization made the emulsions behave similarly to butter oil emulsions. Whey protein was found to be a better stabilizer of emulsions than lecithin at 5 and 20 °C, but at 40 °C some Maillard reaction was noticed. It was suspected that the concentration of lecithin in emulsions was insufficient. Based on the results it could be stated that the increasing density due to crystallizing droplets made the emulsions more stable against creaming. Best stability of emulsions containing oil mixtures would be achieved if butter oil and vegetable oil were mixed after homogenization and whey protein used as emulsifier.
  • Hendrik, Nathaniel James (2017)
    Cocoa butter (CB) is the predominant continuous phase in chocolate systems and has a significant impact on the macroscopic properties of the end product. Conventional methods such as differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), pulsed nuclear magnetic resonance (pNMR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and polarized light microscopy (PLM) have been used to study CB crystallization primarily in bulk. Potential of alternative techniques to study crystallization such as Raman spectroscopy and Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) has been explored. The main objective of this thesis research was to study the feasibility of both conventional and alternative techniques to study CB crystallization in different matrices and in tempered conditions. Bulk fat (CB with 1%, 5% or without lecithin), suspensions (CB with 1% lecithin (on fat basis) and sucrose or inulin) and chocolates were sampled as such (non-tempered systems) subjected to a laboratory scale tempering procedure to produce tempered systems. Both non-tempered and tempered products were subjected to DSC, NMR, XRD, PLM, Raman spectroscopy, FTIR and diffusing wave spectroscopy (DWS), in which primary crystallization was monitored or long-term storage was assessed. A toolbox was developed comprising feasibility of complementary techniques and, moreover, the toolbox was used to study the effect of lecithin and bulking materials on the CB crystallization behavior. The tempering procedure was successfully validated for every sample, as proven by the melting profile at 6 hours through DSC. The determination of the solid fat content (SFC) from the raw free induction decay signal by NMR showed to be more useful than the scripted SFC, especially for bulk fat systems. XRD showed its feasibility to study fat polymorphism for both bulk matrices and suspensions, except when sucrose is present, due to its interference in short spacings. PLM could only be used for non-tempered bulk fat systems since in other systems sample preparation cannot be standardized to measure crystallinity. FTIR and Raman spectroscopy seemed to be useful complementary techniques and capable of differentiating polymorphic forms, as is also possible using XRD. DWS showed to be comparable with DSC with an additional improved deconvolution of crystallization peaks. This study resulted in a feasibility toolbox and was used to study the effect of lecithin concentration and bulking materials, where the addition of 1% lecithin concentration in bulk fat and usage of inulin in model suspensions improves the crystallization of the CB matrix.