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Electric field might aid manufacture of low-fat chocolate
Reducing chocolate viscosity for producing low-fat chocolate. Image courtesy of iStockphoto/Ezergil.
Chocolate typically contains up to 40% fat by volume and is composed of cocoa, sugar, milk solids, and other particles suspended in liquid fat, such as cocoa butter. Reducing chocolate’s fat content increases the liquid’s viscosity and clogs production pipelines. Hence, manufacturers have largely failed in attempts to create low-fat chocolate. Rongjia Tao et al. (pp. 7399–7402) developed a method in which an electric field applied along the flow direction of liquid chocolate causes solid cocoa particles to clump into short chains and spheroids in a streamlined manner. Because particle shape influences intrinsic viscosity, the authors reasoned that the electric field-induced clumping would break the particles’ rotational symmetry and reduce both the suspension’s viscosity and the minimum amount of melted fat required to maintain proper texture and flow within the pipeline. Application of an electric field of 1,600 V/cm reduced the viscosity of a sample of Mars chocolate by 43.5%, enabling a potential reduction in fat content …
