Antioxidant and emulsifying properties of modified sunflower lecithin by fractionation with ethanol-water mixtures

CABEZAS, D. M.; GUIOTTO, E.; DIEHL, B.; TOMÁS, M. C.

Food Industry

Intech

Año: 2013; p. 589 - 602

The main application of lecithin at the food industry is associated with its rol as emulsifying agent for dispersions or emulsions [14]. Emulsions are thermodynamically unstable systems from a physicochemical point of view. In virtue of that, it is important to characterize their behaviour against different destabilization processes (flocculation, coalescence, creaming, etc.) [15]. PC enriched fraction, due to its high PC/PE ratio and the lamellar phase structure of the PC at the interface between oil in water, is recognized to be a good oil-in-water (O/W) emulsifier [12,16,17]. On the other hand, PLs can contribute to an improvement of the oxidative stability of fats and oils. Various antioxidative mechanisms have been proposed for the phospholipid ac‐ tions. For example, the amino functions of PC, PS, or PE, or the sugar moiety of PI have been shown to have metal-chelating properties and PC and PE presented a synergistic effect, with phenolic antioxidants such as tocopherols and flavonoids [18, 19]. The objective of this work was to evaluate the antioxidant and emulsifying properties of modified sunflower lecithins by fractionation with ethanol-water mixtures. In this sense, this study seeks to contribute to the food industry with useful information about developing tai‐ lor-made surface-active emulsifiers.