Journal of Food Processing & Technology

Understanding the effects of different polysaccharides on swelling of whey protein hydrogels

4^th International Conference and Exhibition on Food Processing & Technology

August 10-12, 2015 London, UK

Sirvan Sultan Uguz and Mecit Halil Oztop

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Food Process Technol

Abstract:

Hydrogels are highly hydrophilic polymer gels with macromolecular three dimensional networks. Primary use of hydrogels in
food industry is encapsulation of bioactive compounds. They swell by absorbing and retaining large amount of water without
dissolving and losing their integrity. In this study, our objective is to examine the effects of different polysaccharides on swelling of
heat set gels which are composed of whey protein and different types of polysaccharides. Heats set gels were prepared by using whey
protein (15%), polysaccharide (alginate, xanthan gum or citrus pectin) (0.5%). Swelling and NMR experiments were performed for
the hydrogels. Swelling ratio (SR %) for each gel was calculated by using based on the solvent uptake. For NMR experiments, T2
(spin-spin relaxation times) were measured. Swelling experiments showed that pectin had the highest swelling ratio whereas xanthan
gum had the lowest. Solvent uptake data of the gels were fitted to a power law model (Mt/Minf=k*tn). Power indices (n) changed
between 0.03-0.16. Based on the n values it was concluded that solvent uptake was controlled by diffusion, “k” values were also found
significantly different from each other for gels with different polysaccharides (p<0.05). T2 results showed that T2 values increased in
time with solvent uptake. Moreover, significant correlation was found betweenT2 and SR%.

Biography :

Sirvan Sultan Uguz is an undergraduate student in Food Engineering department and also Researcher in Food Bio NMR laboratory in Middle East Technical University.