Thirty-six food powders corresponding to a wide range of physicochemical characteristics (bulk and surface chemical composition, median particle size, span, water activity) and manufacturing processes (grinding, freeze-drying, spray-drying, crystallization) were investigated for their reconstitutability. Their reconstitution profiles were acquired by conductivity measurements and fitted with Hill model. Physicochemical characteristics of investigated powders were correlated to their wetting and reconstitution times by principal component analysis. Four powder categories were identified on the basis of wetting and reconstitution times; i.e. green group (good reconstitutability); yellow and orange groups (intermediate reconstitutability); red group (poor reconstitutability). Long wetting times were associated to high particle surface hydrophobicity, small median particle size, as well as high protein and lipid contents in the powder bulk. Long reconstitution times were linked to the powder manufacturing process (i.e. grinding), as well as to low sugar content in the powder bulk.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.