Journal of Food Processing & Technology

Abstract

Temperature Dependence of Bulk Viscosity in Edible Oils using Acoustic Spectroscopy

Sunandita Ghosh, Melvin Holmes and Malcolm Povey

When ultrasound waves are applied to a compressible Newtonian fluid, bulk viscosity plays an important parameter to cause attenuation. Ultrasound spectroscopy is an important technique to characterise and determine the physico-chemical properties of many food components because it is a non-invasive, non-destructive, easy and accurate technique. The aim of this study was to find the bulk viscosity of three brands of sunflower and extra-virgin olive oil by using the Navier’s-Stoke equation across a temperature range of 5°C to 40°C and to test the hypothesis that there is a significant difference in the value of bulk viscosity between the different brands of sunflower and olive oil used. The value of bulk viscosity was not found to be constant over the operating frequency range of 12-100 MHz, which suggested edible oils are non-Newtonian fluids. Also, no significant statistical difference of bulk viscosity values was found between different brands of the same oil (p ≥ 0.05). This shows bulk viscosity is not affected by small compositional variations. Acoustic spectroscopy is increasingly being used to characterise food materials. More studies on bulk viscosity must be employed in order to be able to utilise this technology to its full strength.