Comparison of the effect of hydrodynamic and acoustic cavitations on functional, rheological and structural properties of egg white proteins

Abstract

The impacts of hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) (orifice plate-2 mm) and acoustic cavitation/ultrasound (US) (probe sonicator- 50% amplitude; 20 kHz frequency) on the functional (foaming, gelling, emulsifying), physicochemical (solubility), rheological and structural properties of egg white proteins (EWP) were evaluated. The egg white solutions were treated for 5, 10 and 15 min for both HC and US. The results suggested that HC-treated samples had higher impact on physiochemical and functional properties when compared to US-treated samples. The best foaming, emulsifying and gelling property was obtained for HC-treated samples (15 min treatment time). Both cavitation treatments exhibited shear thinning behavior, among which US-treated samples had the lowest viscosity. HC-treatment applied for 15 min provided the highest in vitro digestibility (75.51 ± 0.126%) among all the samples. The FTIR spectra of EWP exhibited similar backbone structure for all the samples, while the secondary structure obtained from deconvolution of Amide-I peak differed significantly. Moreover, for product development with EWP, HC -treated samples were more appropriate in gelling and emulsifying applications, which can ensure quality products with higher in vitro digestibility. Overall, this study indicated that HC treatment (for 15 min) improved the functional, rheological, and structural properties of EWP.