About myself

During my bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering at the KIT, my enthusiasm for food process engineering was awakened. That's why I did my bachelor's thesis on high-pressure homogenization of melt emulsions at the LVT. Afterwards, I was able to gain experience as an intern in chocolate production at the confectionery producer August Storck KG. I then successfully completed my Master's degree at KIT. Since August 2022, I have been doing my doctorate at LVT as part of my work as a scientific researcher in the emulsification technology group. There I work on improving vegan milk substitutes.

Research focus

Emulsions are widely used in the food sector. Many milk and milk-based products are oil-in-water emulsions. These emulsions are thermodynamically unstable, which is why separation of the oil and water phases occurs over time. Emulsifying food ingredients such as lecithin are therefore used to stabilize the interface. In milk, for example, the oil phase is crystalline at room temperature, which contributes to its familiar mouthfeel. In contrast, vegetable oils are liquid at room temperature. The aim of my work is to improve product and process design in order to increase the stability and acceptance of plant-based food emulsions. To this end, I am investigating the crystallization behavior of the vegetable triglyceride phase, the presence of added minor components and the properties of the stabilized interface.

Methods

The emulsions are produced with rotor-stator systems or high-pressure homogenizers. This allows droplet sizes from a few nanometers to a few micrometers to be achieved. The characterization of the droplets/particles is done with a polarization microscope equipped with a heating/cooling stage. The crystallization processes can be investigated in temperature ranges from -196 °C to +420 °C at different heating/cooling rates (0.01 to 50 K/min). A polarization unit allows crystalline structures to be distinguished from liquid droplets. What excites me about this characterization is the direct observation of process procedures, and not, as is usually the case, an interpretation with the help of outgoing and incoming information.

Furthermore, the influence of shear/oscillation on crystallization is investigated with the help of an optical shear table.

Measurements with rheometers are carried out to investigate the deformation and flow behavior.