(60l) Heuristic-Aided Emulgels Design for Food and Cosmetic Applications

Emulgels are soft solid materials that can be classified as emulsions with a gel network structure, in which the emulsified droplets are embedded within the gel matrix. This makes emulgels to be complex colloidal materials that can exist in both an emulsion and in gel state. In these matrices, at least one phase, either the continuous phase or the dispersed phase, forms spatial networks that lead to the formation of a semisolid texture (1, 2). Besides water and vegetable oils, the main ingredients used to produce an emulgel correspond to structuring agents, which are mostly polysaccharides, and emulsifiers, that also contribute with the structuring action. The suitable combination of emulsifying and structuring agents gives these systems a set of unique and versatile properties (e.g. stability, effectiveness) that enable their use in a large variety of applications.

Emulgels can be used as ingredients in the food, pharma and cosmetic industries because they enable to reduce fat content in different formulations and impart certain rheological properties to the final mixtures (e.g. firmness, spreadability, controlled releasing). Particularly, and based upon their tunable properties, emulgels can be used to improve the controlled release of certain drugs for pharmaceutical applications. In the cosmetics industry they are used to make creams and lotions as they provide a smooth texture and greater stability. Finally, in the food industry, they are used to reduce the content of saturated and trans fats and to transform partially hydrogenated oils into semi-solid forms (2, 3). However, the incorporation of emulgels in novel products or in the reformulation of existing ones, require an extensive experimental evaluation to identify the suitable set of ingredients and the required content of emulgel in the final product. Such evaluation is necessary to ensure that the final product fulfill the expected product performance and consumer’s needs.

In order to reduce the time and resources required in the formulation of new products involving emulgels, there is need to incorporate more effective approaches in the product design stage. In this regard, different strategies have been implemented to accelerate the design of structured products, looking for reducing market entry times. Specifically, computer-aided approaches have been successfully applied in the design of structured products. Using these in-silico methods, functional attributes of the products are first related to certain physicochemical properties, which are then used to define the required target values to fulfil manufacturer-consumer-user expectations. A recently developed computer-aided methodology have proposed the integration of heuristic knowledge into the product design stage. This methodology consists of finding a set of plausible formulations for a product, based on a fuzzy comprehensive analysis of consumer preferences, integrated into a mixed integer optimization tool that incorporates heuristic rules and available property models (4). Thus, by using this approach, it would be possible to accelerate emulgel designs, making it possible to incorporate as optimization function the manufacturing costs, the reduction of fat content or the improvement of the nutritional profiles, among others. Nonetheless, in a first stage, there is need to develop a set of predictive models for the physicochemical properties of the emulges that are related with their final performance.

In this regard, this work developed a methodology for the prediction of rheological properties of emulgels used in the food industry. Specifically, a mathematical model for the estimation of viscosity of concentrated emulsions was adjusted to predict the viscosity of emulgels. This model depends on the contribution of the viscosity of the aqueous and organic phases, and their content in the final formulation. Initially, based upon reports from the literature and the characterization of some formulations, it was possible to obtain equations that allowed predicting the viscosity of each of the phases of the emulgel based upon their content of structuring and emulsifying agents, and also of the final emulgel. Thereafter, the methodology was finally tested for the formulation of emulgels for food applications, using the obtained models applied to the selected ingredients together with the use of heuristic rules provided by expert designers and supplier of structuring agents and emulsifiers. Such models and heuristics were programmed in Phyton and solved via MILP optimization of the formulation was done trying to reduce manufacturing costs. The application of the methodology enabled to obtain a final product that met the intender product performance at the minimum formulation cost.

1. Ren Y, Huang L, Zhang Y, Li H, Zhao D, Cao J, et al. Application of Emulsion Gels as Fat Substitutes in Meat Meat Products. Foods. 2022;11(1950):1–24.

2. Abdullah, Liu L, Javed HU, Xiao J. Engineering Emulsion Gels as Functional Colloids Emphasizing Food Applications: A Review. Front Nutr. 2022;9:1–16.

3. Lingiardi N, Galante M, de Sanctis M, Spelzini D. Are quinoa proteins a promising alternative to be applied in plant-based emulsion gel formulation? Food Chem [Internet]. 2022;394(May):133485. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.133485

4. Arrieta Escobar JA. An Integrated Methodology for Chemical Product Design : Application to Cosmetic Emulsions. Universidad Nacional de Colombia; 2018.