Effect of different plant protein sources on the stucture of nanofibrils revealed by scattering

Important results from the project

We wanted in this project to investigate how to create a texture in a food application by spinning plant-based protein nanofibrils (PNFs) into micro-thick threads. X-ray facilities, able us to study how the fibrils align in a flow cell. With the help of SAXS measurements, the goal was to gain a deeper understanding of which conditions generate optimal alignment of the PNFs and the best conditions for creating long and stable threads. Complementary secondary structure analyzes were performed using WAXS. Promising results from both of these techniques were collected at P03 DESY.

Expected long term effects

After one month of preparation, extraction of large amounts of protein, and assembling the protein into nanofibrils, were we able to perform our analysis at DESY, Hamburg. The initial analyzes of the massive amount of data we managed to collect, shows that our experiments were successful. The results show that we succeeded in creating an alignment of our plant-based PNFs, which with a deeper analysis will give us an increased knowledge of how we can use flow cell technology to create micrometer-thick threads. The plan is that these results will be included in three different articles.

Approach and implementation

We examined four morphologically different PNFs´ ability to align in a flow cell. The fibrils were generated from two different sustainable food-related protein sources mung bean (long curly) and whey (long straight, short straight, short curly). We investigated the alignment at several different sheath flows, in 3 different flow cells. The internal structure analysis was made with WAXS. After returning from DESY, several of us have attended a workshop together with an expert on how to analyze the data. At the time of writing, the data is still being analyzed.