Highly Functional Weighting Agent By Green Modification of Natural Fibers to Stabilize Flavored Oils in Beverages

Currently available weighting agents to increase oil density for stabilizing flavored beverageemulsions are limited and heavily regulated and banned in many countries.However there areno natural weighting agents in the marketplace today.Meanwhile the global demand for "cleanlabel" "natural " and "organic" ingedients continues to rapidly grow.The objective of thisproject is to make a natural weighting agent ingredient produced using sustainablemanufacturing practices to stabilize beverage emulsions.By using chemical-free enzymatictechnology to enhance the surface activity zeta potential and amphiphilicity a fiber-basedingredient sourced from citrus and/or the sugar beet industry will be used in beverages to provideoil stabilization. Technology is proposed to activate natural components of plant fibers by usingthermal-mechanical treatments to produce a weighting functionality that readily binds to oil. Theactivating treatments will enhance the oil binding ability of the native pectin and protein found inthe natural raw materials and particle sizing will further enhance its properties for stabilizingbeverage emulsions. The proposed weighting agent Densi-Fi will be able to replace chemicalbased weighting agents. Collaborations with the University of Minnesota and USDA-ARS areproposed for compositional analysis characterization and development of new processes toenhance the emulsification properties.The anticipated result is a surface-active weighting agentwith large commercial potential. Fiberstar Inc. is a small company without access to researchfunds for new product development; therefore SBIR grant funding is critical to advance thistechnology forward demonstrate feasibility and further develop the proposed concepts.