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Studying Surfactant Effects on Hydrate Crystallization at Oil-Water Interfaces Using a Low-Cost Integrated Modular Peltier Device
Published on: March 18, 2020
The effect of colloidal aggregates on fat crystal networks
Raamanand R Chauhan1, Roel P A Dullens1, Krassimir P Velikov2
1Department of Chemistry, Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QZ, UK. raamanand.chauhan@chem.ox.ac.uk dirk.aarts@chem.ox.ac.uk.
Abstract:
We investigate the role of a colloidal model system in the crystallization and network formation of lipids. This system consists of fractal fumed silica aggregates. We look at the influence of different solid fat concentrations and fumed silica concentrations on the resulting gel network. Oscillatory rheology shows that the addition of silica to fat-in-oil gels does not significantly affect the magnitude of the storage modulus within the linear viscoelastic region. Interestingly, the range of this region is increased. Differential scanning calorimetry shows that the presence of silica leads to slightly earlier crystallization, though no significant effect on the melting profile of the formed network is found. Based on these observations, we propose that composite gel network structures have been formed. These results show that we have created reduced solid fat alternatives with similar rheological behaviour and thermal properties as the full-fat systems through the addition of colloidal silica.
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