Food structure and moisture transfer : a modeling approach /
Valerie Guillard, Claire Bourlieu, Nathalie Gontard.
- New York : Springer, 2013.
- vii, 60 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
- SpringerBriefs in Food, Health, and Nutrition ; v. 8. .
- SpringerBriefs in food, health, and nutrition. .
Includes bibliographical references and index.
It's well known that the structural characteristics of food materials influence their mass transfer, especially their water transfer properties during such processes as drying, hydration, and storage. In porous cereal-based products, for example, effective water diffusivity is highly affected by the volume fraction and distribution of both solid and gas phases, while in dense food materials, such as fat-based or other edible coatings, it depends on factors that affect the'tightness' of the molecular structure (e.g., free volume, cohesive energy density, crystallinity)