Óleos e gorduras: metodologias preditivas para o cálculo de propriedades físicas, comportamento de fases e digestibilidade in vitro

Author(s)

Ericsem Pereira

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Engenharia de Alimentos
• Defense date: 2022-07-04

Examining board members

Guilherme José Maximo; Rosiane Lopes da Cunha; Marcela Cravo Ferreira; Daniel Gonçalves; Marcelo Lanza

• Advisor: Antonio José de Almeida Meirelles; Guilherme José Maximo

Abstract

Fats and oils are products of high industrial and nutritional relevance because of their sensory contribution to fat-based products and providing energy to the human body. For developing products with desired properties and attending to specific nutritional demands, predictive computational tools are helpful to develop suitable products and processes at an industrial level or help researchers search for formulations that provide desired healthy performance. In this context, this present work presents solutions for using efficient methodologies to predict the physical properties of complex systems such as edible lipids and lipidic mixtures. Therefore, this doctoral research aimed to elaborate and evaluate methods to predict the physical properties and phase behavior of fats and oils, characterize non-conventional fats and oils with potential for new application in the food industry, and conduct assays to evaluate the digestion profile of lipid products, as a function of their physical properties. First, fats and oils from the Brazilian biodiversity were investigated regarding their physicochemical properties for obtaining an experimental data bank. It was observed that these products presented a vast potential for new oil industry applications. Moreover, the determination of technological aspects such as melting and crystallization profiles showed opportunities for developing new fat-based products. Subsequently, we developed an algorithm to calculate solid fat fractions as a function of the temperature and fatty acid compositions. We used the thermodynamic models UNIFAC and modified UNIQUAC to predict the phase behavior of fats of commercial interest. The obtained results demonstrated that the proposed methodology could represent the non-ideality of the evaluated lipids and predict their phase behavior. In the last stage of this research, we assessed the gastrointestinal digestion lipid samples rich in medium-chain fatty acids using dynamic and static protocols of in vitro digestion. It was observed that gastric digestion has a crucial role in determining the lipolysis rate of medium-chain fatty acids during gastrointestinal digestion. The assays using the dynamic protocol also showed that the specific enzymatic activity is lower at actual digestion conditions when compared to those measured with standard protocols, thus, limiting the amount of free fatty acids released during the digestion, i.e., available for absorption and metabolic use. Finally, we conclude that this research contributed to the experimental and theoric study of lipids behavior by developing tools and knowledge that may be used for developing new products or manufacturing processes (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 17/16979-7 - Development of predictive methodologies for calculating physical and equilibrium properties and simulation of fluid dynamics behavior of fats and oils during the digestive process
• Grantee: Ericsem Pereira
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate