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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Peoria, Illinois » National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research » Functional Foods Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #274908
Title: Waxes as organogelator for soybean oil

Author
item Hwang, Hong-Sik
item Kim, Sanghoon
item Singh, Mukti
item Moser, Jill
item Liu, Sean

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/29/2012
Publication Date: 5/2/2012
Citation: Hwang, H., Kim, S., Singh, M., Moser, J.K., Liu, S.X. 2012. Waxes as organogelator for soybean oil. 103rd AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: This research reveals that a small amount of a food grade plant wax may replace a large amount of the hardstock containing trans-fat or saturated fat. Natural waxes including plant waxes and animal waxes were evaluated for the gelation ability toward soybean oil (SBO) and compared with hydrogenated vegetable oils, petroleum waxes and commercial non-edible gelling agents. Sunflower wax (SW) and rice bran wax could make a gel with concentrations as low as 0.5 wt%. Gelation ability of a wax is significantly dependant on its purity and detailed composition. A wax ester with longer alkyl chains has significantly better gelation ability toward SBO than that with shorter alkyl chains indicating that the chain length of a component in a wax such as wax ester is an important factor for gelation ability. The SW-SBO organogel showed increased melting point with increased SW content. The effects of cooling rate on crystal size and firmness of a gel were investigated. The dependence of firmness on cooling rate was so significant that the desired texture of an organogel could be achieved by controlling the cooling rate in addition to controlling the amount of gelling agent.