Short communication
Modelling the effect of temperature on the lipid solid fat content (SFC)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2011.10.026Get rights and content

Abstract

The solid fat content (SFC) is an important physical property of lipids, expressing their physical, sensorial, technological and protecting/release properties. In spite of being frequently used, the temperature for a specific SFC is in general obtained by direct interpolation of experimental data, with any modelling and comparison described in literature. The present work evaluated three sigmoidal functions (the Gompertz model, a power decay model and the Logistic model) for modelling the effect of temperature on SFC, using twenty lipids, comprising animal and vegetable native fats and oils, as well as those obtained by interesterification, hydrogenation and/or fractionation. The three models described well the experimental data, with R² higher than 0.96. However, the Gompertz model describes it better especially at low and high values of SFC. The results here presented are potentially useful for future studies on lipid technology.

Highlights

►The SFC dependency of temperature was evaluated for twenty lipids. ►Three sigmoidal functions (Gompertz, power decay and the Logistic model) were used. ►The three sigmoidal functions described well the s-shaped SFC behaviour. ►The Gompertz model described better the SFC behaviour at low and high values of SFC.

Introduction

The solid fat content (SFC) is an important physical property of lipids, which express the solid fraction amount at each temperature. It affects physical properties such as spreadability, consistency and stability, influences important sensorial properties (Ribeiro, Basso, Grimaldi, Gioielli, & Gonçalves, 2009a) and protecting/release properties in encapsulation technology.

Therefore, the SFC is widely used to describe and understand food properties and applications, as well as its behaviour in different storage, processing and consuming conditions. In fact, Flöter (2009) observed that the SFC vs. temperature curve is the predominant parameter to quantify the structuring potential of a fat composition.

In spite of being frequently used, the temperature for a specific SFC is in general obtained by direct linear interpolation of experimental data, with any modelling and comparison described in literature.

The effect of temperature on lipids SFC is described by a characteristic decayed S-shaped curve (Fig. 1) with two asymptotic values. At low temperatures, the SFC tends to a maximum asymptotic value, from which melting starts to decay the solid content. At intermediate temperatures, the SFC decays with an inflexion point. At high temperatures lipid is completed melted, i.e., the SFC tends to a minimum asymptotic value of 0%, as no more solid fat is observed.

Modelling physical properties as a function of process and consuming parameters and conditions is essential for unit operations design, process optimization and high quality products assurance. The present work evaluated three sigmoidal functions for modelling the solid fat content (SFC) of twenty lipids as function of temperature.

Section snippets

Materials and methods

Twenty lipids were evaluated, comprising animal and vegetable native fats and oils, as well as those obtained by interesterification, hydrogenation and/or fractionation. Its SFC at each temperature were obtained in literature works (Table 1), using the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) method (Farmani et al., 2009, Fatouh et al., 2007, Grimaldi et al., 2000, Nasirullah et al., 2010, Shen et al., 2001, Singh et al., 2002, Soares et al., 2010, Tarmizi et al., 2008, Wilson and Pease, 1999, Zhang et

Results and discussion

Table 2 shows the obtained parameters for the Gompertz (Eq. (1)), the power decay sigmoidal (Eq. (2)) and the Logistic (Eq. (3)) models. The model regressions showed high values for the coefficient of determination (R² > 0.96), as well as suitable levels for the RSS and MRSS values (Table 3).

Eq. (4) was used in order to evaluate the efficiency of each model in describe the experimental values. The parameters α, β and R2 are shown in Table 3. For the Gompertz model, α values were between 0.97 and

Conclusions

The present work evaluated three sigmoidal functions (the Gompertz model, a power decay model and the Logistic model) for modelling the effect of temperature on solid fat content (SFC), considering twenty lipids. Although the three models described well the experimental data, the Gompertz model described it better at low and high values of SFC. As there is any work in literature modelling the SFC curve, the mathematical description of this important lipid property enable products and processing

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