Microtechnological Tools to Achieve Sustainable Food Processes, Products, and Ingredients

Abstract

One of the major challenges we face as humankind is supplying a growing world population with sufficient and healthy foods. Although from a worldwide perspective sufficient food is produced, locally, the situation can be dire. Furthermore, the production needs to be increased in a sustainable manner for future generations, which also implies prevention of food waste, and making better use of the available resources. How to contribute to this as food technologists is an ultimate question, especially since the tools that can investigate processes at relevant time scales, and dimensions, are lacking. Here we propose the use of microtechnology and show examples of how this has led to new insights in the fields of ingredient isolation (filtration), and emulsion/foam formation, which will ultimately lead to better-defined products. Furthermore, microfluidic tools have been applied for testing ingredient functionality, and for this, various examples are discussed that will expectedly contribute to making better use of more sustainably sourced starting materials (e.g., novel protein sources). This review will wrap up with a section in which we discuss future developments. We expect that it will be possible to link food properties to the effects that foods create in vivo. We thus expand the scope of this review that is technical in nature, toward physiological functionality, and ultimately to rational food design that is targeted to improve human health.

The Importance of Interfacial Tension in Emulsification: Connecting Scaling Relations Used in Large Scale Preparation with Microfluidic Measurement Methods

“…For example, the surface elasticity can also be monitored in microfluidic systems, and although this is mostly done for surfactant systems, a lot of progress has also been made in this field [115,116]. In that respect, the findings presented here are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg of options that microfluidic technology has to offer for emulsification research [69,89].…”

“…[61], (B) [62], and (C) [63]; pressure drop (D) [64]; and droplet deformation (E) [66]. Images reprinted with permission of Springer [69]. With the method of Steegmans et al [61], the smallest droplets and time-scales can be assessed [62,66,71], which are both relevant for large-scale processes.…”

“…Microscopic images during or after interfacial tension measurement based on droplet size (A)[61], (B)[62], and (C)[63]; pressure drop (D)[64]; and droplet deformation (E)[66]. Images reprinted with permission of Springer[69].…”

Droplet Microfluidics for Food and Nutrition Applications

“…A specific review on lab-on-chip manipulation and study of triglyceride droplets is in [ 17 ]. A review on the use of microfluidics in food applications with a focus on the sustainability of food processes is in [ 18 ]. The current review is intended to be more comprehensive, and to give more detail on food droplet systems generated and analyzed with microfluidic techniques.…”

Microfluidics Used as a Tool to Understand and Optimize Membrane Filtration Processes

“…For these reasons it is expected to contribute to current world challenges, mainly those related to high energy consumption. For example, the higher demand for food products [14] can benefit from mildly resourced raw materials, leading to more efficient use by purification and isolation of substances of interest and commercial value [6,15,16]. Obviously, this can only be achieved by tuning membranes and membrane processes to the desired application.…”