Appendix A: Moisture Analysis
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Appendix A: Moisture Analysis Moisture content is one of the most commonly accuracy, cost, speed, sensitivity, specificity, ease measured properties of food materials. It is of operation, etc. The choice of an analytical pro- important to food scientists for a number of dif- cedure for a particular application depends on the ferent reasons: nature of the food being analyzed and the reason the information is needed. • Legal and Labeling Requirements. There are legal limits to the maximum or minimum amount of water that must be present in cer- Properties of Water in Foods tain types of food. • Economic. The cost of many foods depends on The moisture content of a food material is defined the amount of water they contain - water is an through the following equation: inexpensive ingredient, and manufacturers often try to incorporate as much as possible in %Moisture = (mw/msample) × 100 a food, without exceeding some maximum legal requirement. Where mw is the mass of the water and msample • Microbial Stability. The propensity of micro- is the mass of the sample. The mass of water is organisms to grow in foods depends on their related to the number of water molecules (nW) water content. For this reason many foods are by the following expression: mw = nwMw/NA, dried below some critical moisture content. where Mw is the molecular weight of water • Food Quality. The texture, taste, appearance (18.0 g per mole) and NA is Avadagro’s number and stability of foods depends on the amount (6.02 × 1023 molecules per mole). In principle, of water they contain. the moisture content of a food can therefore be • Food Processing Operations. A knowledge of the determined accurately by measuring the number moisture content is often necessary to predict the or mass of water molecules present in a known behavior of foods during processing, e.g. mixing, mass of sample. It is not possible to directly mea- drying, flow through a pipe or packaging. sure the number of water molecules present in a sample because of the huge number of molecules It is therefore important for food scientists to involved. A number of analytical techniques be able to reliably measure moisture contents. commonly used to determine the moisture content A number of analytical techniques have been of foods are based on determinations of the mass developed for this purpose, which vary in their of water present in a known mass of sample. © Springer International Publishing AG 2018 567 J.M. deMan et al., Principles of Food Chemistry, Food Science Text Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63607-8 568 Appendix A: Moisture Analysis Nevertheless, as we will see later, there are a surrounded only by other water molecules. number of practical problems associated with It therefore has physicochemical properties these techniques that make highly accurate deter- that are the same as those of pure water, e.g., minations of moisture content difficult or that melting point, boiling point, density, com- limit their use for certain applications. For these pressibility, heat of vaporization, electromag- reasons, a number of other analytical methods netic absorption spectra. have been developed to measure the moisture • Capillary or trapped water. Capillary water is content of foods that do not rely on direct mea- held in narrow channels between certain food surement of the mass of water in a food. Instead, components because of capillary forces. these techniques are based on the fact that the Trapped water is held within spaces within a water in a food can be distinguished from the food that are surrounded by a physical barrier other components in some measurable way. that prevents the water molecules from easily An appreciation of the principles, advantages escaping, e.g., an emulsion droplet or a bio- and limitations of the various analytical techniques logical cell. The majority of this type of water developed to determine the moisture content of is involved in normal water-water bonding foods depends on an understanding of the molec- and so it has physicochemical properties simi- ular characteristics of water. A water molecule lar to that of bulk water. consists of an oxygen atom covalently bound to • Physically bound water. A significant fraction two hydrogen atoms (H2O). Each of the hydrogen of the water molecules in many foods are not atoms has a small positive charge (δ+), while the completely surrounded by other water mole- oxygen atom has two lone pairs of electrons that cules, but are in molecular contact with other each has a small negative charge (δ−). food constituents, e.g. proteins, carbohydrates Consequently, water molecules are capable of or minerals. The bonds between water mole- forming relatively strong hydrogen bonds cules and these constituents are often signifi- (O-Hδ+ ∙ δ−O) with four neighboring water mole- cantly different from normal water-water cules. The strength and directionality of these bonds and so this type of water has different hydrogen bonds are the origin of many of the unique physicochemical properties than bulk water physicochemical properties of water. The develop- e.g., melting point, boiling point, density, ment of analytical techniques to determine the compressibility, heat of vaporization, electro- moisture content of foods depends on being able to magnetic absorption spectra. distinguish water (the “analyte”) from the other • Chemically bound water. Some of the water components in the food (the “matrix”). The charac- molecules present in a food may be chemically teristics of water that are most commonly used to bonded to other molecules as water of crystalli- achieve this are: its relatively low boiling point; its zation or as hydrates, e.g. NaSO4 ∙ 10H20. These high polarity; its ability to undergo unique chemical bonds are much stronger than the normal water- reactions with certain reagents; its unique electro- water bond and therefore chemically bound magnetic absorption spectra; and, its characteristic water has very different physicochemical prop- physical properties (density, compressibility, elec- erties to bulk water, e.g., lower melting point, trical conductivity and refractive index). higher boiling point, higher density, lower com- Despite having the same chemical formula pressibility, higher heat of vaporization, different (H2O) the water molecules in a food may be electromagnetic absorption spectra. present in a variety of different molecular envi- ronments depending on their interaction with the Foods are heterogeneous materials that contain surrounding molecules. The water molecules in different proportions of chemically bound, physi- these different environments normally have dif- cally bound, capillary, trapped or bulk water. In ferent physiochemical properties: addition, foods may contain water that is present in different physical states: gas, liquid or solid. The • Bulk water. Bulk water is free from any other fact that water molecules can exist in a number of constituents, so that each water molecule is different molecular environments, with different Appendix A: Moisture Analysis 569 physicochemical properties, can be problematic for food before and after the water is removed by the food analyst trying to accurately determine the evaporation: moisture content of foods. Many analytical proce- MM− dures developed to measure moisture content are %Moisture = INITIALDRIED ×100 more sensitive to water in certain types of molecu- M INITIAL lar environment than to water in other types of Here, MINITIAL and MDRIED are the mass of the molecular environment. This means that the mea- sample before and after drying, respectively. The sured value of the moisture content of a particular basic principle of this technique is that water has a food may depend on the experimental technique lower boiling point than the other major compo- used to carry out the measurement. Sometimes nents within foods, e.g., lipids, proteins, carbohy- food analysts are interested in determining the drates and minerals. Sometimes a related parameter, amounts of water in specific molecular environ- known as the total solids, is reported as a measure ments (e.g., physically bound water), rather than of the moisture content. The total solids content is the total water content. For example, the rate of a measure of the amount of material remaining microbial growth in a food depends on the after all the water has been evaporated: amount of bulk water present in a food, and not M necessarily on the total amount of water present. %Total Solids =×DRIED 100 There are analytical techniques available that can M INITIAL provide some information about the relative frac- Thus, %Total solids = (100 − %Moisture). To tions of water in different molecular environ- obtain an accurate measurement of the moisture ments (e.g., DSC, NMR, vapor pressure). content or total solids of a food using evaporation methods it is necessary to remove all of the water molecules that were originally present in the Sample Preparation food, without changing the mass of the food matrix. This is often extremely difficult to achieve Selection of a representative sample, and preven- in practice because the high temperatures or long tion of changes in the properties of the sample times required to remove all of the water mole- prior to analysis, are two major potential sources cules would lead to changes in the mass of the of error in any food analysis procedure. When food matrix, e.g., due to volatilization or chemi- determining the moisture content of a food it is cal changes of some components. For this reason, important to prevent any loss or gain of water. the drying conditions used in evaporation meth- For this reason, exposure of a sample to the atmo- ods are usually standardized in terms of tempera- sphere, and excessive temperature fluctuations, ture and time so as to obtain results that are as should be minimized. When samples are stored accurate and reproducible as possible given the in containers it is common practice to fill the con- practical constraints.