Kato Rondou is a PhD student at the Food Structure and Function Research Group at Ghent University. Her research focusses on fat crystallization, exploring the impact of processing on the formation of the fat crystal network. Hereby, X-ray scattering techniques are very important to characterize fat polymorphism and the lamellar stacking.

About the lecture

X-ray scattering for structural analysis of chocolates and fillings

X-ray scattering techniques are important to identify fat polymorphism. Especially in chocolate, it is aimed to crystallize the cocoa butter in the βV polymorph to obtain chocolates with the desired quality in terms of gloss, snap and mouthfeel. In a first part of this lecture, the theoretical background of X-ray scattering is explained. This includes the concepts of X-ray scattering, the equipment and the differences between WAXS, SAXS and USAXS. In a second part, more insights into the application of the different techniques are discussed. This will mainly focus on running an experiment followed by analyzing and interpreting the results.