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The effect of storage at different relative humidity conditions, for various types of lactose, on roller compaction behaviour was investigated. Three types of lactose were used in this study: anhydrous lactose (SuperTab21AN), spray dried lactose (SuperTab11SD) and α-lactose monohydrate 200M. These powders differ in their amorphous contents, due to different manufacturing processes. The powders were stored in a climatic chamber at different relative humidity values ranging from 10% to 80% RH. It was found that the roller compaction behaviour and ribbon properties were different for powders conditioned to different relative humidities. The amount of fines produced, which is undesirable in roller compaction, was found to be different at different relative humidity. The minimum amount of fines produced was found to be for powders conditioned at 20-40% RH. The maximum amount of fines was produced for powders conditioned at 80% RH. This was attributed to the decrease in powder flowability, as indicated by the flow function coefficient ffc and the angle of repose. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) was also applied to determine the velocity of primary particles during ribbon production, and it was found that the velocity of the powder during the roller compaction decreased with powders stored at high RH. This resulted in less powder being present in the compaction zone at the edges of the rollers, which resulted in ribbons with a smaller overall width. The relative humidity for the storage of powders has shown to have minimal effect on the ribbon tensile strength at low RH conditions (10-20%). The lowest tensile strength of ribbons produced from lactose 200M and SD was for powders conditioned at 80% RH, whereas, ribbons produced from lactose 21AN at the same condition of 80% RH showed the highest tensile strength. The storage RH range 20-40% was found to be an optimum condition for roll compacting three lactose powders, as it resulted in a minimum amount of fines in the product., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Abstract: Agglomeration technologies are commonly used by the food industry to optimize several properties such as density and flowability and also to shorten the reconstitution time of commercial powders. The latter advantage is mostly linked to the creation of inter-particle pores available for capillary rise. Capillary rise is related to the wetting properties of the solid material evaluated through the contact angle θ. The difficulties in assessing contact angles of food material are discussed in this article. However by choosing appropriate solid/liquid combinations the penetration of droplets into agglomerates was investigated as a function of viscosity and surface tension of the liquid. The wetting rate was found to be in good agreement with the theoretical Washburn equation. Another important factor affecting the reconstitution process of agglomerate is related to the amount of energy that is required to breakdown the agglomerates to individual particles or aggregates. The energy requirements (provided as heat, mixing, etc.) are assumed to be largely influenced by the physical state of the solid bridges. Dissolution of freeze-dried amorphous skimmed milk powder was shown to be much faster than dissolution of a recrystallized sample containing crystalline lactose. In view of the observations made in this article, it seems that implementation of adequate experiments allows investigating individually each step of the reconstitution process. Therefore, it will be desired to describe each step through a set of physical equations and combining these equations into a more comprehensive model. Such model could be used to optimize commercial powders leading to an increased consumer acceptance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wetting kinetics of powder-liquid systems represent an important factor with regards to many practical applications, such as coating, granulation, agglomeration or powder reconstitution. Wetting as the first step during food powder reconstitution strongly depends on the interactions of the wetting liquid and the particle surface, expressed by the contact angle. Due to the heterogeneous composition of food materials including hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces, also the wetting process heterogeneous in nature. Furthermore, the solubility of food ingredients, such as sugars, increases the complexity of understanding and describing the wettability. We investigated the liquid penetration into heterogeneous, soluble model food powders using a Washburn setup. Soluble sucrose was used as hydrophilic food component and silanized glass beads were prepared as hydrophobic, inert material. Both materials were characterized in terms of contact angle and powder properties. Different mixtures of hydrophilic, soluble sucrose and hydrophobic glass beads were produced and their wetting performance was determined. For predicting the liquid penetration into food powders, the model developed in our previous study (Kammerhofer et al., 2018a [1]) about the penetration of aqueous solutions into food powders was extended. It now considers solute concentration-dependent liquid properties and the heterogeneity of solid surfaces. The model is based on the solution of a coupled system of two differential equations representing capillary rise into a pore network and the mass transfer equation. Two main factors were identified as having a major influence on the wetting kinetics: the viscosity and the contact angle. Increasing either of these factors reduces the penetration performance, but each of them is dominant in a different concentration range. Our adapted model predicts penetration rates which are close to the experimental data. Thus, we can conclude that it is suitable for predicting the capillary penetration into heterogeneous, soluble food powders. Unlabelled Image • Viscosity increase due to dissolution has main effect on penetration performance. • Development of model predicting penetration into heterogeneous, soluble powders. • Fair agreement of experimental and modelled penetration behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Wetting as the first step during food powder reconstitution strongly depends on the interactions of wetting liquid and particle surface, expressed by the contact angle. Due to the heterogeneous composition of food materials including hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces, also the wetting process is of heterogeneous nature. Furthermore, the solubility of food ingredients, such as sugars, increases the complexity of understanding and describing the wettability. In this study, we compared experimental water penetration into inert model powders containing hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces with theoretical penetration rates which were calculated by modifying a Washburn-based approach for the application to heterogeneous systems. A fair agreement was found when adjusting the porosity of the powder bed. In a second step, the inert powder was replaced by sucrose to introduce the effect of solubility. Since in presence of sucrose the model for inert systems can no longer describe experimentally observed penetration rates, we developed a model for water penetration into food powders considering solute concentration dependent liquid properties. The model is based on the solution of a coupled system of two differential equations representing capillary rise into a pore network and the mass transfer equation. Viscosity was found to have a major influence on the wetting kinetics. Our model predicts penetration rates during the first few seconds which are close to the experimental data. This allows us to conclude that it is suitable for predicting the first seconds of capillary penetration into a particulate system consisting of soluble sucrose. Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image Highlights • Critical hydrophobic concentration changes wetting rate • Pore blockage due to hydrophobic walls reduces effective porosity • Agreement of theoretical and experimental penetration rates in heterogeneous system • Development of model predicting penetration in soluble sucrose powder • Evaluation of predicted penetration rates into sucrose powder with experiments [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic wetting behavior as first step in reconstitution of heterogeneous model food powders was investigated in the present work. Therefore, we studied the capillary rise of water into single pores and pore systems containing hydrophilic and hydrophobic walls. A two-wall setup was developed to realize the capillary rise in a single gap containing walls with two different contact angles but a constant pore size. The equilibrium penetration height was measured and compared to calculated heights using advancing contact angles inserted in a model equation. Wetting experiments in a Washburn setup were performed with respect to the investigation of water penetration into a heterogeneous pore network which leads to a variable pore size during the rise. In order to determine the effect of contact angle, three different glass materials at varied levels of hydrophobicity were prepared. Furthermore, a focus was put on understanding the impact of the pore network on the wetting kinetics by mixing two size fractions of glass beads. The equilibrium heights determined in heterogeneous single gaps fit well with the calculated heights by inserting advancing contact angles into the model equation. The results of the powder systems show a significant impact on the wetting with an increasing hydrophobic fraction, while an increased hydrophobic contact angle further increased the wetting time only at higher quantities of the hydrophobic component in the sample. Furthermore, our findings emphasize the complexity of wetting into a system with heterogeneity in pore size and contact angle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]