Kew, B., Holmes, M., Liamas, E. et al. (4 more authors) (2023) Transforming sustainable plant proteins into high performance lubricating microgels. Nature Communications, 14. 4743. ISSN 2041-1723
Abstract
With the resource-intensive meat industry accounting for over 50% of food-linked emissions, plant protein consumption is an inevitable need of the hour. Despite its significance, the key barrier to adoption of plant proteins is their astringent off-sensation, typically associated with high friction and consequently poor lubrication performance. Herein, we demonstrate that by transforming plant proteins into physically cross-linked microgels, it is possible to improve their lubricity remarkably, dependent on their volume fractions, as evidenced by combining tribology using biomimetic tongue-like surface with atomic force microscopy, dynamic light scattering, rheology and adsorption measurements. Experimental findings which are fully supported by numerical modelling reveal that these non-lipidic microgels not only decrease boundary friction by an order of magnitude as compared to native protein but also replicate the lubrication performance of a 20:80 oil/water emulsion. These plant protein microgels offer a much-needed platform to design the next-generation of healthy, palatable and sustainable foods.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2023. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Food Science and Nutrition (Leeds) > FSN Colloids and Food Processing (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EU - European Union EP/X03514X/1 EU - European Union 757993 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 08 Aug 2023 11:52 |
Last Modified: | 08 Aug 2023 11:52 |
Published Version: | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-40414-7... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Portfolio |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41467-023-40414-7 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:202247 |
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