Effect of cocoa fat content on wetting and surface energy of chocolate

The aim of this study was the quantification of the effect of the cocoa fat content on the wetting characteristics and surface free energy of different chocolate compositions. On the market, there are many different types of chocolate products which differ both in the sensory and physico-chemical properties together with their raw material compositions and the contents of the individual components. This paper focuses on differences in the use of different types of fats - cocoa butter, milk fat, equivalents or cocoa butter substitutes in chocolate products. Studied samples (prepared at Carla, Ltd. Company) were followed by static contact angles of wetting measurements and by calculated surface free energies. There were investigated the effects of fat content and used fat types of the chocolate products on their final wettabilities and resulting surface free energies. There was found a linear dependence between total fat content and the surface free energy, which was gradually increasing with increasing fat content. Additionally, there were performed TG DTG and NIR spectrometry measurements of the tested materials with the aim to determine the melting point of studied fats used, as well as to determine and identify individual fat components of chocolate products which may affect the resulting value of surface free energy. © 2017 Potravinarstvo Slovak Journal of Food Sciences

Sono-extraction as a pretreatment approach for the screening evaluation of element mobility of sediment samples

Application of economically important and time saving pretreatment for the screening element mobility evaluation of contaminated sediments is presented. Ultrasonically-assisted single-step extraction (USAE) was carried out by EDTA solution. The extraction time of USAE was optimized and obtained results were compared with results estimated by conventional (EDTA extraction) and by sequential extraction (modified BCR protocol). The original three step BCR protocol was modified by addition of the first step (water leaching) and the fifth step, total digestion of sediment residue (acid mixture with HF). Zn, Cu and Pb have been determined in extracts by ICP-OES. Good conformity of the ultrasonically-extracted element contents and sum of contents, extracted during first three steps (water-soluble, acid-extractable, reducible - i.e., the most mobile fractions) of sequential extraction, was found. The sono-extraction reduced operating time of the first three steps of sequential extraction from 48 h to 15 min. Thus, USAE can serve as a rapid screening assessment of the mobile and potentially mobile element portions in sediments and other similar solid state environmental media. Analytical quality control was realized by comparison of the sums of element contents obtained at individual (five) extraction steps. Total element contents were also determined by an independent method (XRF)