edible Pickering Emulsion Technology (ePET)

肥胖给卫生服务带来越来越大的负担，并降低生活质量; NHS的肥胖直接成本为42亿英镑，（160亿英镑的间接成本），预计将增加一倍以上（以及到2050年达到500亿英镑的间接成本）。健康食品可以帮助缓解这种压力，然而，消费者仍然期望这些产品能提供令人愉快的饮食体验。这就需要配制“无形”减少脂肪的食品，在味道和“方便性”上与全脂食品相同。基于双重乳液的低脂健康食品可以实现这一目标。然而，由于需要突破性创新的技术问题，双重乳化技术在食品中的应用尚不存在。该项目旨在设计、开发和生产新型、多功能、高价值、腌制稳定的双重乳液，用于开发专门针对减肥的食品。在概念层面上，双重乳液在健康食品开发中具有巨大的潜力;也就是说，因为它们在食物中赋予了“不可感知的”脂肪减少，而且还通过“不可见的”携带和递送营养物质和生物活性物质而不损害味道。虽然“简单”乳液在许多商业领域（包括食品）中是成熟的体系，但科学和技术知识还不足以使双重乳液商业化生产。为实现这一目标，需要进行创新，以克服目前与双重乳液有关的加工和稳定性问题;（a）加工问题：双重乳液是通过两步乳化工艺生产的。然而，第二步可能会“破坏”一级结构，导致不一致的乳液，因此双重结构容易不稳定（奥斯特瓦尔德熟化）。(b)稳定性问题：双重乳液由至少两种低分子量表面活性剂稳定。这些倾向于在两个相反弯曲的界面之间迁移，最终导致双重结构的崩溃。这种不稳定的过程是加速的拉普拉斯压力和化学势差的两个水相的双重结构。该合作研发项目将解决这些重要的技术挑战;即通过一系列工艺持续生产双重乳液的能力，提供具有长期稳定性的双重乳液，并在显著降低乳化剂水平的情况下配制这些复杂的微结构。来自伯明翰大学的证据表明，目前与双重乳液相关的加工和稳定性问题都可以通过使用Pickering颗粒来解决。然而，目前还没有可用作皮克林颗粒的食用结构。本项目将提供配方设计规则和工艺路线，以生产稳定的可食用Pickering颗粒。拟议的项目计划经过精心设计，旨在快速识别潜在的可食用皮克林颗粒和可食用皮克林双重乳液“技术”，用于原型制造，扩大生产这些产品的工艺，最后对制造的原型进行感官评估，并确定它们是否可以提供可接受的减脂食品。项目团队提供独特且协同的产品，将催化不同的思维，通过对表面化学的理解、工艺工程的进步、测量和表征，为创新铺平道路。拟议的研究计划涉及伯明翰大学（UoB），嘉吉和联合利华。从这一合作中开发的技术和获得的理解将使许多新的应用和食品进入市场，该项目的知识产权也有望成为商业创新。

Obesity is placing an increasing burden on health services as well as lowering life quality; the direct cost of obesity to NHSis £4.2bn (£16bn indirect costs), forecasted by Foresight to more than double (and to reach £50bn indirect costs) by 2050.Healthy foods can help ease this strain, however consumers still expect these to provide a pleasurable eating experience.This requires formulation of food products of "invisibly" reduced fat, identical in taste and "convenience" to their full-fatcounterparts. Reduced-fat healthy foods based on double emulsions could achieve just that. Nonetheless uses of doubleemulsion technology in foods are absent due to technological issues in need of break-through innovation. This projectproposes the design, development and ability to manufacture novel, multifunctional, high value, Pickering-stabilised doubleemulsions for the development of foods specifically formulated with reference to fat reduction.At a conceptual level, double emulsions offer enormous potential in the development of healthy foods; namely becausethey impart an "unperceived" fat reduction in foods but also by "invisibly" carrying and delivering nutrients and bioactiveswithout compromising on taste. Although "simple" emulsions are well-established systems in many commercial areas(including foods), science and technological knowledge are not yet available to allow double emulsions to be commerciallyproduced. To achieve this, innovation is needed to overcome processing and stability issues currently associated withdouble emulsions; (a) Processing issues: double emulsions are produced by a 2-step emulsification process. However the2nd step can "damage" the primary structure resulting in inconsistent emulsions, and thus double structures that are proneto destabilisation (Ostwald ripening). (b) Stability issues: double emulsions are stabilised by at least two low molecularweight surfactants. These tend to migrate between the two oppositely curved interfaces, eventually leading to the collapseof the double structure. This destabilisation process is accelerated by Laplace pressure and chemical potential differencesbetween the two aqueous phases of the double structure. This collaborative R&D project will address these importanttechnological challenges; namely the ability to produce double emulsions consistently through a range of processes, todeliver double emulsions with long-term stability and to formulate these complex microstructures with significantly reducedemulsifier levels. Evidence from the University of Birmingham suggests that both the processing and stability issuescurrently associated with double emulsions can be potentially addressed by the use of Pickering particles. However ediblestructures that can be used as Pickering particles are currently unavailable. This project will deliver both the formulationdesign rules and processing routes in order to manufacture stable edible Pickering particles. The proposed projectprogramme is carefully designed to quickly recognise potential edible Pickering particles and edible Pickering doubleemulsions "technologies" for use in prototype manufacture, to scale-up the processes to produce these and finally tosensorially evaluate the manufactured prototypes and establish whether they can deliver acceptable fat-reduced foodproducts.The project team provides a unique and synergistic offering which will catalyse different thinking, approaches and pave theway for innovation, through understanding of surface chemistries, advances in process engineering, measurement andcharacterisation. The proposed research program involves the University of Birmingham (UoB), Cargill and Unilever. The technology developed and understanding gained from this collaboration will enable many new applications and foods toreach the market, with IPR from this project also expected to be commercially innovative.