Influence of sonication, temperature, and agitation, on the physical properties of a palm-based fat crystallized in a continuous system.

High-intensity ultrasound (HIU) has been used in the past to change fat crystallization and physical properties of fat crystalline networks. The objective of this work was to evaluate how HIU placed on different positions in a scraped surface heat exchanger (SSHE) using different processing conditions affect the physical properties of an interesterified palm olein. The sample was crystallized at two temperatures (20 °C and 25 °C) and two agitation rates (344/208 rpm and 185/71 rpm, barrels/pin worker). HIU (12.7 mm-diameter tip, 50% amplitude, 5 s pulses) was placed at three different positions within the SSHE. After processing, samples were stored at 25 °C for 48 h and analyzed according to the crystal morphology, solid fat content (SFC), oil binding capacity (OBC), melting behavior, viscoelasticity, and hardness. Physical properties were affected by crystallization conditions, by sonication, and by HIU position. The greatest improvement obtained was at 20 °C using low agitation when HIU was placed at the beginning of the SSHE. These conditions result in a sample with 98.9% of OBC, 274 kPa of viscoelasticity and 31 N of hardness. These results show that HIU can be used as an additional processing tool to improve physical properties of a palm-based fat and that the best improvement was obtained as a combination of crystallization conditions and HIU position.