ULTRA-OLEO · Ultrasonic standing waves as a new tool for improved oleogels

Ultrasonic standing waves as a new tool for improved oleogels

Oleogels are lipid-based materials that contain 85–99.5% of liquid oil with the remainder consisting of structuring molecules called oleogelators. They were introduced as substitutes for saturated and hydrogenated fats to fight the adverse effects of non-communicable diseases (NCD) such as cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and eventual onset of obesity caused by excessive fat consumption in the diet. NCDs affect billions of adults and millions of children. The annual healthcare costs related to treating diseases caused by/related to obesity is 60 billion euro in Europe and 210 billion dollars in USA. Oleogels can be used to reduce NCD outbreaks by substituting saturated fats. Unfortunately, oleogel storage instability currently impedes these materials from becoming the “fat of the future”. Much effort has been directed to explore strategies to improve oleogel performance such as formulation and processing. The proposed strategies are unable to precisely control the forming crystal network and can also lead to oxidized oleogels. To obtain oleogels with long storage stability it is necessary to carefully control the forming crystalline network without inducing adverse effects such as oxidation. To this aim, the ULTRA-OLEO project developed a new, economic, and environmentally friendly technology that can modify the structure of oleogels to prolong oleogel storage stability, by bringing together food science, acoustic physics and engineering. To create such a technology, we developed a treatment chamber, and validated and optimized the treatment of monoglyceride-containing oleogel. To identify the effect of the treatments, we studied nano and microstructure, mechanical properties, oil retention ability. The outcome of this project is a technology that can direct the crystallization process and that can orient lipid crystals into controllable shapes/patterns which then results in tailorable mechanical properties and stability of oleogels. This achievement brings the use of oleogels a step further in foods, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union