Jack Youngs – PhD student
“Understanding bubble dynamics in sonicated edible lipids to improve their physicochemical properties”
Ultrasound has been identified as a novel and non-toxic processing approach[1–3] for healthier ‘trans-fat’ free edible lipids to significantly improve their physicochemical properties such as hardness, viscoelasticity and melting profile. This investigation aims to correlate the variations in bubble behaviour, generated by acoustic cavitation, to the changes in the observed crystallisation kinetics and physicochemical properties of lipid systems. Cavitation[4] is a complex phenomenon that involves the interaction between pressure variations (as a result of ultrasonic stimuli) and bubble nuclei, and outlines the bubble nucleation, growth, motion and collapse processes that occur within liquid systems. This project seeks to exploit a diverse array of techniques, including high-speed imaging, electrochemical analysis and physicochemical characterisation, to identify the fundamental processes that occur during lipid sonocrystallisation. This offers an exciting approach to tailor the texture and palatability of food products, via a rationally tuned sonication regime, with potential to tackle the increasing demands for suitable healthier lipid sources in the future. This also provides an opportunity to obtain a greater understanding of bubble dynamics within sonicated lipid systems, a field which has currently received little research interest.
This project is completed in collaboration with Professor Silvana Martini, Nutrition, Food and Dietary Science (NFDS) Department and Professor Tadd Truscott, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, both at Utah State University, Logan, USA.
1. A. H. Suzuki, J. Lee, S. G. Padilla and S. Martini, J. Food Sci., 2010, 75, E208-14.
2. S. Martini, J. V Kadamne, E. A. Ifeduba and C. C. Akoh, J. Am. Oil Chem. Soc., 2017, 94, 1045–1062.
3. A. Wagh, P. Birkin and S. Martini, Annu. Rev. Food Sci. Technol., 2016, 7, 23–41.
4. T. G. Leighton, The Acoustic Bubble, Academic Press, London, 1994.
Personal Interests:
Outside of work I am a keen swimmer, really enjoy photography and I make some mean chocolate brownies. Most recently, I think I have caught the travelling bug after visiting project collaborators in America.