Coarsening of ice crystals adversely affects the texture and shelf life of frozen products. The addition of stabilizers offers a potential solution to this problem. The goals of this project were to examine the coarsening behavior and the impact of stabilizers in a variety of frozen products. Various techniques including fluorescence microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, viscometry and hardness measurements were used to study the kinetics of coarsening. The results indicated that ice crystal size can change significantly during handling and as a result leads to variations in the hardness. The data suggested a mixed control kinetic mechanism for coarsening. The addition of stabilizers was found to generally reduce the coarsening rate.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Nguyen, Ngan Thuy
• Huynh, Han N. L.
• Yiu, Kevin Kai

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• E-project-050114-121844

Advisor

• Shivkumar, Satya
• DiBiasio, David

Year

• 2014

Date created

• 2014-05-01

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Chemical Engineering

Rights statement

• In Copyright