Competitive migration of proteins within droplets and particles during spray drying

Summary

The objectives of this project are to assess what types of proteins are most effective as encapsulating materials for spray-dried sticky materials such as sugars and how and why the dryers can best be operated to give the greatest encapsulation effectiveness.

Supervisor(s)

Professor Timothy Langrish

Research Location

Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Program Type

N/A

Synopsis

Proteins have recently been discovered by us and co-workers to be very effective encapsulants at very low concentrations (less than 1%) compared with existing materials, such as maltodextrins, which must be used at concentrations of up to 50% when producing spray-dried honey.Key aspects of scientific significance for this project include:

1. Developing a distributed-parameter particulate drying model to account for the formation of the non-sticky protein layer on the particle surfaces;
2. Measuring the multi-component diffusion coefficients of ternary protein-sugar-water systems;
3. Assessing how the different surface activities of various proteins affect the extent of protein surface coverage and therefore selecting the most appropriate proteins for encapsulation.

Keywords

drying, Proteins, encapsulation, diffusion, sprays, surface activity, process technology, process engineering

Opportunity ID

The opportunity ID for this research opportunity is: 305

Other opportunities with Professor Timothy Langrish

• Combined drying and crystallization in spray drying
• Super Sorbents from Spray Drying
• New robust spray dryer designs
• Energy flow models for timber kilns and total lifecycle costs of timber drying
• Developing new multifunction layered particles with novel modular food processing systems
• Improving the scale-up of spray drying for bioactive extracts and fibres
• The Effects of Spraying Materials into Gases Other than Air as a Way to Control Surface Coating by Proteins
• Creating and Testing Naturally-based Preservatives for Breads from Australian Herbs
• Improving flow stability in small-scale spray dryers
• Improving the Storage Stability of Dairy Powders by Crystallizing Spray-Dried Powders in Fluidized Beds
• Differential Crystallization of Materials During Drying
• Wastes to Products: Towards New High-Value Products from Extraction and Spray Drying of Citrus Peels
• The Effects of Changing the Inlet Gas Temperature and Drying Atmosphere in Spray Drying on Particle Properties
• Vitamin C as a Means of Controlling Crystallinity in Dairy Products
• Energy Recovery in Spray Drying
• Comparing the Alignment of Capital Costs and Embodied Energy for Better Greenhouse Gas Accounting