A rapid benchtop NMR method for determination of droplet size distributions in food emulsions |
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Authors: | John P M van Duynhoven Benjamin Maillet Jimmy Schell Mathieu Tronquet Gert‐Jan W Goudappel Elena Trezza Andrea Bulbarello Dagmar van Dusschoten |
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Affiliation: | 1. Unilever Food and Health Research Institute, Vlaardingen, The Netherlands;2. DSM Research, Geleen, The Netherlands;3. Current address: Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany |
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Abstract: | The determination of water and oil droplet size distributions in food emulsions by low‐field NMR has the advantage of a simple and non‐perturbing sample preparation. Furthermore, NMR performs very well with respect to precision. The current implementation on most benchtop NMR spectrometers deploys a variation of gradient duration and requires continuous corrections for gradient imbalances, thus making the whole procedure a time‐consuming one. By using variation of gradient strength and further stretching the capability of commercial benchtop NMR spectrometers, both water and oil droplet sizes can be measured in a more rapid manner, typically two to three times faster. The measured droplet size distributions are equivalent to those assessed by the current (slow) method, for both O/W and W/O emulsions. Furthermore, the rapid method shows a good performance with respect to precision. In addition, the method is able to determine droplet sizes in samples with much smaller amounts of dispersed phase. |
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Keywords: | NMR droplet size distributions benchtop food emulsions |
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