Dispersing micronized fat crystals (MFCs) in oil is a novel route to largely decouple fat crystallisation and network formation and thus to simplify the manufacture of fat-continuous food products. MFCs dispersed in oil form a weak-interaction network organized by crystal aggregates in a continuous net of crystalline nanoplatelets. The rough surface of MFC nanoplatelets hampers stacking into one-dimensional aggregates, which explains the high mass fractal dimensions of the networks formed in MFC dispersions. Applying shear does not have a significant effect on the fractal dimensions of MFC networks, and MFC aggregates in the range of 5-10 μm remain intact. However, shear leads to a significant loss of storage modulus and yield stress over a time frame of an hour. This can be attributed to irreversible disruption of the continuous net of nanoplatelets. Rheo-SAXS revealed that shear releases nanoplatelets from the continuous net, which subsequently align in the shear field and undergo rapid recrystallisation. The release of thin and metastable nanoplatelets from the weak-link network bears relevance for simplified and more effective manufacturing of emulsified food products by effectively decoupling crystallisation, network formation and emulsification.
Performing
rheo-microMRI velocimetry at a high magnetic field with
strong pulsed field gradients has clear advantages in terms of (chemical)
sensitivity and resolution in velocities, time, and space. To benefit
from these advantages, some artifacts need to be minimized. Significant
sources of such artifacts are chemical shift dispersion due to the
high magnetic field, eddy currents caused by the pulsed magnetic field
gradients, and possible mechanical instabilities in concentric cylinder
(CC) rheo-cells. These, in particular, hamper quantitative assessment
of spatially resolved velocity profiles needed to construct local
flow curves (LFCs) in CC geometries with millimeter gap sizes. A major
improvement was achieved by chemical shift selective suppression of
signals that are spectroscopically different from the signal of interest.
By also accounting for imperfections in pulsed field gradients, LFCs
were obtained that were virtually free of artifacts. The approach
to obtain quantitative LFCs in millimeter gap CC rheo-MRI cells was
validated for Newtonian and simple yield stress fluids, which both
showed quantitative agreement between local and global flow curves.
No systematic effects of gap size and rotational velocity on the viscosity
of a Newtonian fluid and yield stress of a complex fluid could be
observed. The acquisition of LFCs during heterogeneous and transient
flow of fat crystal dispersion demonstrated that local constitutive
laws can be assessed by rheo-microMRI at a high magnetic field in
a noninvasive, quantitative, and real-time manner.
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