How to Use Thermal Analysis Techniques in the Food Industry

In this webinar, we demonstrate how to use thermal analysis techniques to investigate the properties of various food products and packaging in areas such as processing, storage, and quality. We describe applications that are important for many segments of the food industry.

Food: A Highly Regulated Industry

Food products are directly related to public health. As a consequence, international and national regulations describe techniques for testing these delicate products and ensuring the required standards are met.

Thermal analysis is one such technique and is nowadays very important for characterizing different foods and packaging in many segments of the industry.

Important Thermal Analysis Techniques for the Food Industry

DSC: Important for determining melting behavior, used also for the heat of fusion, purity, polymorphism, glass transition, and oxidation stability.
TGA: Mainly used to study evaporation, desorption & vaporization behavior, thermal stability, kinetics of decomposition, and composition analysis.
TOA: In this technique, visual observation is used to investigate melting behavior and polymorphism.
TMA: Typically used to study expansion and shrinkage behavior of packaging films, as well as glass transition.
DMA: This is the most sensitive method used for investigating glass transition.

Typical Applications

Typical applications include protein denaturization of dry milk powder (DSC), moisture content in edible oils (TGA), and the softening/melting of multilayer packaging film (TMA). However, the opportunities for using thermal analysis techniques in the food industry are extremely varied and numerous!

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