On the role of triglyceride diversity in structuring fat phases

The crystallization kinetics of commercial structuring fats are shaped by the interplay of polymorphic transitions and the formation of mixed crystals involving three primary melting groups: H3, H2M, and H2U. Here, H represents long-chain saturated fatty acids, M denotes medium-chain saturated fatty acids, and U signifies unsaturated fatty acids. Assigning the molecular makeup of structuring fats to the kinetic pathways proves to be a challenging task when dealing with complex mixtures. For example, incorporating H2M triglycerides alters the crystallization pathways substantially by impacting the formation of mixed crystals with and between H3 and H2U triglycerides (TAGs). Further, parameters like saturated fatty acid composition and TAG asymmetry affect phase segregation differently.

This study examined four commercial blends with different fatty acids (palmitic versus stearic acid) and varying H3 contents (8% versus 4%), C8-P, C8-S, C4-P, and C4-S. The H2M content and sum of structuring melting groups was kept constant at 9 % and 25 %, respectively. Further, the commercial blends were replicated using synthetic triglycerides representing the main melting groups: PPP and SSS for H3, PLaP and SLaS for H2M and POP and SOS for H2U – resulting in academic blends A8-P, A8-S, A4-P, and A4-S. The crystallization under quiescent conditions at a cooling rate of 3.5 K/min of all eight blends was studied via DSC and time-resolved SAXS/WAXS.

Systematics observed with variation of the H3 content, the dominant saturated fatty acid, and TAG diversity (comparing commercial to academic blends) are reported: while the P-based commercial blends (C8-P and C4-P) followed typical crystallization routes including an α-β’ transition and clear dependency on H3 content, the S-based counterparts, C8-S and C4-S, showed an α-phase of prolonged stability. Differences between commercial and academic blends are discussed.