Food Structure and Moisture Transfer: A Modeling Approach

✍ Scribed by Valérie Guillard, Claire Bourlieu, Nathalie Gontard (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag New York
• Year: 2013
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 64
• Series: SpringerBriefs in Food, Health, and Nutrition 8
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

It's well known that the structural characteristics of food materials influence their mass transfer, especially their water transfer properties during such processes as drying, hydration, and storage. In porous cereal-based products, for example, effective water diffusivity is highly affected by the volume fraction and distribution of both solid and gas phases, while in dense food materials, such as fat-based or other edible coatings, it depends on factors that affect the "tightness" of the molecular structure (e.g., free volume, cohesive energy density, crystallinity). This Brief will review the impact of food structure on moisture transfer. A multi-scale analysis of food structure will include a look at molecular structure (e.g., free volume, crystallinity), nanostructure, microstructure (e.g., porous food), and macrostructure (e.g., bilayer structure). For each structural analysis, a focus on the mathematical modelling of the relationship between structural properties and moisture transfer properties will be performed. ​

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-vii
Introduction....Pages 1-2
Theoretical Background....Pages 3-33
Relationship Between Multiscale Food Structure and Moisture Transfer Properties....Pages 35-44
Integration of the Various Scales: The Example of Hydrophobic Dense Edible Coatings....Pages 45-47
Back Matter....Pages 49-60

✦ Subjects

Food Science; Biochemical Engineering; Nanochemistry