Award details

NMR studies of water in foods

Reference	BBS/E/F/02100772
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Dr Brian Hills
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	Quadram Institute Bioscience
Department	Quadram Institute Bioscience Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	43,260
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/1997
End date	31/03/1998
Duration	12 months

Abstract

combination of NMR techniques will be used to study the distribution and transport properties of water in model and real food systems on distance scales ranging from the microscopic (1-400 microns) to macroscopic. Moisture transport on the macroscopic distance scale On the macroscopic distance scale the transport of water during drying, rehydration and thermal processing of representative classes of foods such as extruded pasta, starch gels, doughs and cellular tissue will be monitored using fast imaging protocols being developed at the IFRN. Theoretical modelling of the MRI moisture profiles will be use to identify the transport mechanism, surface mass transfer coefficients, surface moisture contents and the dependence of the apparent water diffusivity on moisture content. Moisture distribution and transport on the microscopic distance scale A concurrent part of the programme involves relating the macroscopic moisture transport properties to food microstructure. This will be done by determining microscopic air-water distributions using high resolution microimaging, relaxometry and 'NMR q-space microscopy'. Volume selective spectroscopy will also be developed to monitor the transport of intracellular metabolites such as sugars, amino acids and lipids in cellular plant tissue during processing and ripening. Such NMR studies of water in foods have potentially important applications in consumer science, nutrition, enzymology and microbiology.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Agri-food (AF)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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