How Haircare Industry Leaders use Texture Analysis to get ahead of their competition

How Croda measures the physical characteristics of hair

At Croda they use their TA.XTplus Texture Analyser to put hair tresses to the test. As an example, the effectiveness of personal care products on the physical characteristics of hair are assessed, with the bending force of a hair bundle used as an indicator of softness. Different types of hair are tested, comparing results before and after the application of various hair treatments.

For the test, the hair samples are divided into two bundles – one to undergo treatments, the second to be used as a control. An average bending force from a cycle of ten three-point-bend tests is calculated for each sample.

Texture Analysis in Research: Its Importance for 3D Printed Foods

3D printing is becoming mainstream as a design and manufacture tool in many industries. One of these is the food industry, where innovation is a key marketing strategy; consumers will buy into products that have a new spin on ‘fun’ or ‘healthy’. It is a very useful tool in the food industry, bringing digital design to life through the medium of an edible product and allowing full customisation.

Using this tool, a food product or a whole meal can have its ingredients tailored to meet the needs of a patient in hospital or a care home, leading to a better recovery. 3D printing also has the potential to make life easier for those people who use health trackers. There is a possibility that in the future, the user’s fitness tracker can send data to the 3D printer, which will output a meal perfectly tailored to that person’s requirements.

How Confectionery Industry Leaders use Texture Analysis to get ahead of their competition

• How Wrigleys and Revolymer control chewing gum texture

Wrigley have been using their TA.XTplus for quality control in a range of products for decades now. In addition to new product development and troubleshooting, the effects of formulation changes on chewing gum texture have also be assessed.

Innovative attachments, including forward and back extrusion cells, craft knife blades and tensile grips, are put into action to assess characteristics such as hardness, stickiness and stringiness.
 
Over the past two centuries, gum manufacturers have embraced materials science to produce a product that has a wide variety of benefits, from cavity protection to enhanced mental concentration.

How Bakery Industry Leaders use Texture Analysis to get ahead of their competition

How Zeelandia measures the crustiness of bread rolls

By combining the Texture Analyser’s ‘V’ Squeeze test with simultaneous acoustic measurements, Zeelandia pioneered a new method to determine the crustiness of bakery products to obtain detailed objective analysis of crust breakage.

Henk Mulder, physical scientist at Zeelandia, commented, “Stable Micro Systems’ equipment is extremely accurate and versatile. Manual tests, and even our previous lab testing methods, didn’t give us enough detail to draw meaningful conclusions for our NPD or quality control purposes.

“The ‘V’ Squeeze test measures valuable parameters, but recording sound using the Acoustic Envelope Detector provides far more detailed results that can be used in new product development and for competitor analysis and QC purposes”.

Six Ways to Test the Physical Properties of a Tablet

Transforming a formulation into a successful solid dose tablet is a complex process that involves many considerations. Time and raw materials are both valuable and must be saved wherever possible in the production process, and getting production right in the early stages is crucial to prevent expensive faults and tablet defects in the downstream production process.

During compression, the ingredients can have a large effect on physical factors. For example, abrasiveness, moisture content and particle size all affect compressibility. Considerations must also be made of the properties of the finished product.

During their manufacture, tablets are subjected to a great deal of physical abuse within the hopper in which they are spun. During this time, chipping may occur. The extent of this depends on tablet hardness. It is undesirable in terms of product quality and is also a potential health risk to the consumer.

Stickiness in Foods - Desirable or unwanted?

When a food is described as ‘sticky’, that may refer to one of several manifestations: adhesion to processing equipment, cohesion of powders, sticking to packaging, and sticking to fingers and parts of the mouth. This last characteristic affects the appreciation of food texture perceived during consumption.

In most food systems, the adhesion force in any one context is a combination of an adhesive force and a cohesive force. A food material is perceived as being sticky when the adhesive force is high and the cohesive force is low. Not all foods possess adhesiveness, and so it is not a property worth measuring in all cases. Adhesion can be either a benefit, drawback, or both depending on the circumstances.

The Packaging Research Revolution: Biodegradable Polymer Films

The majority of countries worldwide are making an effort to reduce their mark on the planet, and cutting down on plastics is an obvious place to start because of the availability of alternatives, and due to the large amount of waste they leave behind.

One of the largest sources of single use plastics is packaging. There is a large amount of academic and industrial research into this area. Stable Micro Systems equipment is a regular feature of publications due to the need for mechanical property analysis; one of the drawbacks of biodegradable polymers is their reduced structural integrity. Consequently, Texture Analysers are necessary to perform tests for both R&D and quality control, once the product has reached production. The following are a selection of recent publications into this interesting and important field, specifically those focussing on polymer films.

The Packaging Research Revolution: Biodegradable polymer foams and rubbers

A major focus of current research in both industrial and academic institutions is the development of suitable alternatives to single use plastics. This has been driven by the worldwide push for a cleaner environment, and both the manufacture and disposal of plastics are harmful in separate ways.

Packaging is a large contributor to plastic production, particularly the single use sector. One method of reducing this production is to replace traditional polymers with biodegradable alternatives. A drawback of biodegradable plastics is their reduced strength and toughness. Mechanical properties are an important consideration when it comes to packaging, so their control is a crucial stage in the R&D process. Consequently, Stable Micro Systems feature heavily in publications from this field. The following are a selection of recent journal papers, specifically those focussing on polymer foams and rubbers.