STICKINESS DURING SPRAY DRYING

Dr Bhesh Bhandari SPRAY DRYING RESEARCH GROUP School of Land and Food Sciences & School of Engineering The University of Queensland AUSTRALIA

Spray Drying Research Group

Current research activities

Prediction of glass transition temperature of model mixtures- relevant to sugar-rich foods such as fruit juice, honey Design of static and dynamic stickiness testing devices for food powders In-situ stickiness measurement of droplets Drying kinetics and dryer design for sticky materials

My other research activities

Structural relaxation of dried food materials Application of ultrasound in food processing- meat tenderisation, homogenisation, encapsulation Development of microencapsulation process for food flavours, probiotics, vitamins Water activity prediction (flavour powders, IMF) Extrusion and stability of microencapsulated flavours Ultrasound spectroscopy in non-invasive characterisation of food materials (gelation, composition, texture etc..)

Spray drying
Most common process to convert liquid to solid Large throughput- capacity several tonnes per hour- (15 tonnes per hour- New Zealand) Produce free flowing, fine to granulated powders Low thermal effect on materials during drying Versatile in use- ceramic or milk

A typical two-stage spray dryer

Source: Dairy Processing Handbook. Published by Tetra Pak Processing Systems AB, S-221 86 Lund, Sweden. pg. 369.

FILTER MAT DRYER

Source: Dairy Processing Handbook. Published by Tetra Pak Processing Systems AB, S-221 86 Lund, Sweden. pg. 370.

Stickiness issues during spray drying

Stickiness on the drier wall (spray drying)
Wet and plastic appearance Agglomeration and clumping in packing container Operational problems Losses

Hot air

Non-sticky product

Sticky product

Products exhibiting stickiness during drying

Products with high amount of sugars or organic acids
Fruit juices/pieces/purees/leathers Honey Molasses Whey (acid or sweet) High DE maltodextrins (DE>30) Pure sugars- glucose, sucrose, fructose High acid foods

High fat foods

Major factors causing stickiness

High hygroscopicity
High solubility Low melting point temperature

Low glass transition temperature (related to thermoplasticity)

Glass Transition Approach

Recent approach to describe stickiness Applied to spray drying

Physical properties of sugars and stickiness behaviour

Sugars

Hygroscopicity

(relative) Lactose + Maltose ++ Sucrose +++ Glucose +++++ Fructose ++++++

Melting point Approx solubility in H20 (oC) 60oC (%,w/w) 223 35 165 52 186 71 146 72 105 89

Tg (oC) 101 87 62 31 5

Stickiness (relative) + ++ +++ +++++ ++++++

What is a glass transition?

Physical states of dried solid materials
Amorphous non-aligned molecular structure very hygroscopic go through glass transition predominant in dried food Crystalline aligned molecular structure non hygroscopic no glass transition

Semi-crystalline solid

Crystalline solid

Liquid solution

Grinding Extrusion cooking Thermal melting & cooling

Rapid water removal- drying

Rapid cooling below Tg water <-135oC honey <-45oC

Amorphous solid (glass)

Property of an amorphous solid

Stickiness

Solid

Liquid

Glass transition

Glass transition temperature of various food materials

_______________________________________________________ Food materials T g ( oC )abc _______________________________________________________ Fructose 14 Glucose 31 Galactose 32 Sucrose 62 Maltose 87 Lactose 101 Citric acid 6 Tartaric acid 18 Malic acid -21 Lactic acid -60 Maltodextrins DE d 36 (MW=550) 100 DE 25 (MW=720) 121 DE 20 (MW=900) 141 DE 10 (MW=1800) 160 DE 5 (MW=3600) 188 Starch 243 e Ice-cream f -34.3 g Honey -42 to -51

General concepts
Product above glass transition temperature (Tg) exhibits stickiness Shorter chain molecules- low glass transition temperature
Tg of monosaccharides<Tg of disaccharides

Water depresses the Tg significantly

Tg of amorphous solid water is -135oC

For a complex food system, Tg is a function of weight fraction of each component and their Tgs- but the relationship is not linear

Spray drying of sticky product some guideline

Drying below the glass transition temperature (often not feasible) Mild drying temperature conditions

Increasing the Tg by adding high molecular weight materials (such as maltodextrins)- a predictive approach needed according to the composition
Immediate cooling of the product below its Tg Appropriate drier design to suit the sticky product

Spray drying of honey

Honey composition
Glucose Fructose (Sucrose, Maltose)

Impossible to spray dry due to low Tg (<20oC)

Spray drying of honey

50oC

Tg

Stickiness curve

20oC

10-20oC

Tg curve after maltodextrin addition Tg curve

Stickiness curve

Moisture

Spray drying of whey

Whey contains lactose
Lactose Tg is sufficiently high (101oC)

Not difficult to spray dry

Hygroscopic- crystallisation- caking problem during storage

Spray drying of whey

101oC

Tg

Stickiness curve Tg curve

Moisture

Spray drying of acid and hydrolysed whey

Presence of lactic acid Tg of lactic acid -60oC

Dramatic reduction on Tg of whey

Problem of stickiness Hydrolysed whey
Lactose glucose (Tg=31oC) + galactose (Tg=32oC) Difficult to spray dry

Spray drying of hydrolised whey

101oC

Tg

32oC

Tg curve- lactose

Hydrolysis

Tg curve- hydrolysed lactose

Moisture

Empirical approach- Index method

Index assigned for each components of food
(Tin/Tout=160oC/60oC)

Maltodextrin

lactose

maltose sucrose

glucose fructose citric acid

Easy to dry
(+1) 1 Possible to dry

Difficult to dry

Overall index value to determine drying aid

Xi=fractional weight of a component i (eg maltodextrin sucrose, glucose..)

ai=index value assigned for that particular component and

Y= overall index

Predicted and experimental determined recoveries for model mixtures

Weight fraction Source Experimental Predicted Experimental Predicted Sucrose Glucose Fructose Malto- Overall dextrin index (Y) 0.20 0.183 0.188 0.34 0.315 0.327 0.2 0.183 0.188 0.34 0.315 0.327 0.2 0.183 0.188 0 0 0 0.4 0.450 0.435 0.32 0.370 0.347 0.97 1.02 1.00 0.98 1.02 1.00 Recovery (%) 28 56 50 25 51 50

Weighted average drying index values for honey and pineapple juice
Honey Components* Fructose Glucose Maltose** Sucrose Citric acid Drying index (ai) 0.27 0.51 1.00 0.85 -0.40 Wt. fraction (Xi) 0.553 0.414 0.034 0.002 ai Xi 0.149 0.211 0.034 0.002 Pineapple juice Wt. fraction (Xi) 0.210 0.320 0.440 0.035 ai Xi 0.057 0.163 0.374 -0.014 0.580

Weighted average index (ai Xi) 0.396

Experimental recoveries during the spray drying of honey and pineapple juice at various proportions with maltodextrin

Honey:Malto*

Overall index 1.03 1.00 0.96 0.94

Recovery % 56.5 55.0 48.0 20.3

Pineapple: Malto* 0.50:0.50 0.59:0.41 0.60:0.40 0.75:0.25

Overall Recovery index % 1.09 1.00 0.99 0.84 58.5 50.0** 53.0 45.0

0.47:0.53 0.50:0.50 0.53:0.47 0.55:0.45

Conclusions
Stickiness is related to the material property It can be correlated to glass transition temperature An empirical approach can be used to optimise the processing condition- however the Tg concept can be more appropriate Drying parameters and drier design influence the stickiness property of droplet Further research is needed to correlate the stickiness property with the Tg, drying parameters, drying kinetics, evolution of surface property of droplets