Glass Transitions as Affected by Food Compositions and by Conventional and Novel Freezing Technologies: A Review

Publication date: Available online 17 September 2019Source: Trends in Food Science & TechnologyAuthor(s): Swati Mahato, Zhiwei Zhu, Da-Wen SunAbstractBackgroundStability of food is a great challenge that encompasses the interaction among the constituents, processing conditions and thermal history. The frozen storage of food sometimes incurs possible harmful effect due to the formation of large ice crystal and destruction of the cell structure. Glass transition state is a second-order transition of matter where a system reaches a thermodynamically non-equilibrium state due to the immobility of molecules, and it is a universal phenomenon observed when liquid goes to supercooled vitreous state because of extensive cooling or change in the composition. The cryostabilisation or storage at glassy conditions has been studied widely as it can prevent the quality degradation due to freezing.Scope and approach: The review provides an overview of the theories and assumptions related to the concept of the glass transition and the response of different food components such as moisture, carbohydrate, protein, and lipid at the glassy state. Influences of processing conditions including moisture removal, freezing rate, annealing time on the relaxation process or the glass transition are also elaborated. In addition, the effects of novel freezing techniques such as ultrasound assisted, high pressure assisted, electric and magnetic field assisted freezing are also discussed in the current revi...
Source: Trends in Food Science and Technology - Category: Food Science Source Type: research