Surfactants Used in Food Industry: A Review

The understanding of the formation, structures, and properties of emulsions is essential to the creation and stabilization of structures in food. The increasing use of surfactants, the identification of compounds with low toxicity and good surface activity properties is of great interest. The relevance of the major end points specified in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) guidelines for the hazard assessment of food chemicals is critically analyzed and main parameters are acute toxicity, subacute repeated studies, allergy, reproductive toxicity, long-term studies, and mutagenicity tests. We focus this article on surfactant association structures and food colloids. There is almost infinite number of combinations are organized and arranged in very complex internal microstructures with various types of assemblies such as dispersions, emulsions, foams, gels, etc. Low-mass surfactants are very mobile at the interface and they are particularly efficient reducing the interfacial tension. As a result, they rapidly coat the freshly created oil-water interface during emulsification. In this category, we mainly mentioned monoglycerides, lecithins, glycolipids, fatty alcohols and fatty acids. High-mass surfactants cover protein and polysacharide groups. The protein molecule may interpenetrate in the lipid phase to various degrees. The specific binding is predominantly electrostatic: The headgroups of the surfactants bind to groups of opposite charge on the protein. The saturation binding for anionic surfactants is pH-independent and seems to be controlled by the cooperative hydrophobic interactions. Polysaccharides and smallmolecule surfactants are two of the predominant groups of amphiphilic materials that have been explored for the stabilization of emulsions. One of the most important aspects of polymer-surfactant systems is their ability to control stability and rheology over a wide range of composition. Biocompatible, biodegradable, and/or nontoxic emulsion-based formulations have great potential for applications in the food. The combination of particular characteristics such as emulsifying, anti-adhesive and antimicrobial activities presented by biosurfactants suggests potential application as multipurpose ingredients or additives.