Soft Matter Approaches to Structured Foods: Faraday Discussion 158

Topics: Physical Chemistry, Food Chemistry, Keywords: Soft matter, Food science, Rheology, Slow dynamics, Simulation techniques

Date: /2/3/4/ July 2012, Wageningen, The Netherlands, Europe

Web Site, Contact: events@rsc.org

  

Official Information:

Food materials are unusual as soft matter. They are highly complex, operating on multiple length scales and phases and structured via multiple externally applied fields.

A growing number of scientists are applying a soft matter physics approach to food science. This Faraday Discussion on Soft Matter Approaches to Structured Food will introduce and strengthen the concept of the soft matter approach to food scientists, and bring food scientists together with non-food experts (both experimental and theoretical) from the field of soft matter physics. The Discussion will allow for the exchange of views on state-of-the-art approaches like soft-glass rheology, multiscale/mesoscale simulation techniques, theories on slow dynamics, and driven soft matter systems

The aim of this Discussion is to provide a platform for the exchange of views, to encourage regular food scientists (such as process engineers and food chemists) to adopt the soft matter approach, and to encourage non-food experts from the soft matter community to include food materials in their research. Junior researchers and PhD students in food science will have the opportunity to get more experience of novel soft matter approaches by discussion with top experts in the field. They will also benefit from being able to showcase their own research via a poster session.

Themes

• Structuring formation via external fields (shear, intensive heating, electric)
• Structuring formation via self-assembly (adsorption at interfaces/organogels)
• Slow dynamics in stabilized/jammed foods
• Simulation of structured soft matter/foods at multiple length scales