Ice crystal coarsening in ice cream during cooling: A comparison of theory and experiment

DOI: 10.3390/cryst9060321

Authors: Jingyi Mo (University College London (UCL); Research Complex at Harwell) , Robert D. Groot (Unilever Research & Development) , D. Graham Mccartney (University College London; Research Complex at Harwell) , Enyu Guo (Dalian University of Technology) , Julian Bent (Unilever R&D) , Gerard Van Dalen (Unilever Research & Development) , Peter Schuetz (Unilever R&D) , Peter Rockett (Imperial College London) , Peter Lee (University College London; Research Complex at Harwell)
Co-authored by industrial partner: Yes

Type: Journal Paper
Journal: Crystals , VOL 9

State: Published (Approved)
Published: June 2019
Diamond Proposal Number(s): 12195 , 12616 , 17609

Abstract: Ice cream is a complex multi-phase structure and its perceived quality is closely related to the small size of ice crystals in the product. Understanding the quantitative coarsening behaviour of ice crystals will help manufacturers optimise ice cream formulations and processing. Using synchrotron X-ray tomography, we measured the time-dependent coarsening (Ostwald ripening) of ice crystals in ice cream during cooling at 0.05 °C/min. The results show ice crystal coarsening is highly temperature dependent, being rapid from ca. −6 to −12 °C but significantly slower at lower temperatures. We developed a numerical model, based on established coarsening theory, to calculate the relationship between crystal diameter, cooling rate and the weight fraction of sucrose in solution. The ice crystal diameters predicted by the model are found to agree well with the measured values if matrix diffusion is assumed to be slowed by a factor of 1.2 due to the presence of stabilizers or high molecular weight sugars in the ice cream formulation.

Journal Keywords: ice cream; microstructure; ice crystals; tomography; modelling; coarsening kinetics

Subject Areas: Food Science, Materials


Instruments: I13-2-Diamond Manchester Imaging

Documents:
crystals-09-00321.pdf