The effect of protein types and low molecular weight surfactants on spray drying of sugar-rich foods

The effect of protein types and low molecular weight surfactants (LMS) on spray drying of sugar-rich foods has been studied using sucrose as a model sugar and sodium caseinate (NaCas) and pea protein isolate (PPI) as model proteins. Sodium stearoyl lactylate (SSL) and Polysorbate 80 (Tween-80) were chosen as model ionic and non-ionic LMS. The sucrose:NaCas and sucrose:PPI solid ratios were maintained at (99.5:0.5) and (99:1), respectively and spray-dried maintaining 25% solids in feed solutions. It was found that the proteins preferentially migrated to the air-water interface reasonably swiftly and the addition of LMS resulted into partial or complete displacement of the proteins from the air-water interface. More than 80% of amorphous sucrose powder was produced with the addition of 0.13% (w/w) of NaCas in feed solution. PPI was not as effective and produced less than 50% recovery even at 0.26% (w/w) in feed. Addition of 0.01-0.05% SSL displaced 2.0% and 29.3% of proteins from the surface of sucrose-NaCas-SSL droplet, respectively, resulting in a 6.5 ± 1.2% to 51.9 ± 1.9% reduction in powder recovery. The extent of protein displacement was higher when SSL was added into sucrose-PPI solution; however, the powder recovery was not much affected. The addition of 0.01% Tween-80 in sucrose-NaCas solution resulted in a 48.2 ± 1.5% reduction in powder recovery and at 0.05% concentration, it displaced a substantial amount or all the NaCas from the droplet surface and no powder was recovered. The addition of 0.01% and 0.05% Tween-80 into sucrose-PPI solution resulted into very low powder recoveries (24.9 ± 0.4% and 29.5 ± 1.8%, respectively). The glass transition temperature (Tg) results revealed that the amount of protein required for successful spray drying of sucrose-protein solutions depends on the amount of proteins present on the droplet surface but not on the bulk concentration. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy results showed that the powders of sucrose-NaCas/PPI and sucrose-NaCas/PPI with 0.01% SSL were mostly amorphous while those with sucrose-NaCas/PPI-Tween-80 (0.01%), sucrose-PPI-Tween-80 (0.05%) and sucrose-NaCas/PPI-SSL (0.05%) were crystalline. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved