Effects of Cooling Rate and Emulsifier Combination on the Colloidal Stability of Crystalline Dispersions Stabilized by Phospholipids and β-Lactoglobulin

A lot of applications for (semi-)crystalline triacylglycerol (TAG)-in-water dispersions exist in the life science and pharmaceutical industries. Unfortunately, during storage, these dispersions are often prone to changes in particle size due to unforeseen crystallization and recrystallization events. This results in the alterations of important product properties, such as viscosity and mouthfeel, or the premature release of encapsulated material. In this study, we investigated the effects and interplay of formulation, i.e., emulsifier combination, and processing parameters, i.e., cooling rate, on the colloidal stability of dispersed TAGs and aimed to improve their colloidal stability. We chose phospholipids (PLs) and β-lactoglobulin (β-lg) as the emulsifiers for our model systems, which are commonly applied in many food systems. When dispersions were characterized directly after cooling, we obtained smaller particles and narrower size distributions after fast cooling. Over the course of eleven weeks, the creaming behavior, particle size, melting behavior and polymorphism were characterized. The dispersions stabilized with solely β-lg exhibited a slight increase in particle size, whereas a decrease in size was found when PLs were added. Our results indicate that mass transport phenomena between TAG droplets and particles took place during storage. This migration of TAG molecules changed the composition and size distribution of the dispersed phase, especially at higher PL concentration (0.1 wt%). In our case, this could be prevented by using a lower concentration of PLs, i.e., 0.05 wt%.