A Seminar

on
Foam Mat Drying

By: Ashutosh Tripathy

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Principle of Foam Mat Drying
3. Process Flow Chart of FMD
4. Foam: Structure, Formation and Characteristics
5. Foaming Agents
6. Foam Stabilizers
7. Drying and Types
8. Quality of Foam-Dried Products
9. Comparison of different drying methods
10. Reference
 1.1 Introduction: Drying
• Drying is a process to preserve raw food
materials
• Drying can reduced moisture content up to 1-
5%, which avoids microbial spoilage, enzymatic
reactions, minimizes packaging, storage and
transportation costs (Sangamithra A, et. al.,
2015)
• Carried out by the application of heat and
involves both heat transfer and mass transfer
 1.2 Introduction: Foam Mat Drying

• dehydration of heat-sensitive, high sugar

content and viscous foods, which are difficult-
to-dry and sticky under relatively mild
conditions
• liquid food should be capable of forming
stable foam (Talita S. F., et al.,2016)
2. Principle of Foam Mat Drying
• Transformation of products from liquid to stable foam
followed by air drying
• Stable gas-liquid foam is the primary condition for
successful foam drying
• Proteins, gums and various emulsifiers (e.g., glycerol
monostearate, propylene glycerol monostearate,
carboxymethyl cellulose [CMC], trichlorophosphate)
are used as foaming agents
• Mixtures are whipped to form stable foams using
blender or specially designed device
 Contd…

• The foam is then spread as a thin sheet or mat and

exposed to stream of hot air until it is dried to desired
moisture content
• Drying at relatively low temperatures to form a thin
porous honeycomb sheet or mat, which is
disintegrated to yield a free-flowing powder
• surface area exposed α moisture removal acceleration
• capillary diffusion is also the main reason for the
moisture movement within the product
 3. Process flow chart of FMD
Foam Stabilizer

Foam
Scrapping
Foamed Dried
Fruit Pulp Whipping Drying and
pulp fruit
Grading
powder

Foaming Agent

Fig. 1: Process flow of foam-mat drying (Sangamithra A, et. al., 2015)

 4. Foam
• Structure
– colloidal dispersion in which gas is dispersed in a continuous liquid phase
– dispersed phase (internal phase) is larger than the continuous phase
(external phase)
• Polyhedric foam
– ratio of dispersed phase to continuous phase is larger
– large number of bubbles and form a honeycomb structure
– Examples: Egg white foam and beer foam
• Dilute bubbly foam
– ratio of dispersed phase to continuous phase is small
– individual bubbles retain their spherical shape
– Examples: Choco mousse
 4.1 Structure
• Foams have thin, flat, liquid films or lamellae between
bubbles
• The lamellae meet each other at a point called a plateau
border
• The mechanical strength of lamella determines the stability of
the foam along with their air/ water interface properties
• If viscous liquids are used for foam making, they usually
produce more stable foams; this is due to the increased
elasticity of the lamella
• Owing to the curvature of the interface, the pressure in the
plateau border is lower than that in the bubble
Fig. 2: Schematic representation of structure of
foam (Sangamithra A, et. al., 2015)
 4.2 Formation (Z. Hardy and V. A. Jideani, 2017)
• The formation of foams is generally by the
following three methods:
– Sparging or bubbling
• a known amount of air is bubbled through an orifice into a known
quantity of liquid
• liquid may be completely converted to foam if a large amount of gas is
introduced
• the stability of the bubble formed highly depends on the viscosity of the
liquid
• this method manages the desired bubble size by adjusting the diameter
of the orifice
• this method is not used in food processing industries; however, it is
commonly used for basic foam studies
 Contd…

– Whipping or beating
• incorporation of unlimited amount of air into known quantity of
liquid
• the size of the air bubble will increase and subsequently break into
small bubbles because of the mechanical agitation
• the final size of the bubble depends on the speed of the agitator,
the geometry of the apparatus and the rheological properties of
the liquid
• the severe mechanical stress affects both the coalescence and
formation of bubbles
• widely used in the food processing industries
• electric hand blender takes about 3–5 min to obtain consistent
foam
 Contd…
– Shaking
• foam is obtained by agitating the liquid vigorously
• the volume of the foam formed by shaking depends on the factors
like the amplitude and frequency of shaking, shape of the
container, the volume, protein content and temperature of the
liquid taken
• this method tends to be slower than by bubbling or whipping
under same conditions; hence, it is not commonly practiced on
large-scale foam production
 4.3 Foam Characteristics
• Foam Expansion (FE) = {(Vol. of Foam - Initial vol
of Pulp) / (Initial vol of Pulp)} * 100
• Foam Stability = (Initial foam vol * time
interval) / change in foam vol
• Foam Density (g/cm3) = mass of foam / vol of
foam
• Mechanical or thermal stability: foam not
collapsing for at least 1 h (Ratti and Kudra, 2006)
 5. Foaming Agents
• a surfactant that reduces the surface tension between two
liquids or between a liquid and a solid and facilitates the
foam formation
• it should be able to adsorb readily at the air-water
interface, reduce interfacial tension, withstand thermal
and mechanical agitation
• foaming agents should posses the following properties
– Stabilize foams effectively and rapidly at low concentrations;
– Perform effectively over the pH range
– Perform efficiently in the medium with foam inhibitors such as
fat, alcohol or flavor substances.
 5.1 Egg Albumen
• On whipping, the proteins of egg white denature at the
interface and interact with one another to form stable,
viscoelastic interfacial film
• Greater foam volume has been reported for egg white that
are beaten at room temperature than for those beaten at
refrigerated temperature (Henry and Barbour 1933)
• The EA stabilized foams were collapsed after 20 min of
whipping and found to be unstable, thus could not be used
to dried products (Faladeet al. 2003)
• In those cases, foam stabilizers may be added to enhance the
stability of foam over time (Muthukumaran 2007)
Fig. 3: Structure of egg albumen foams after one, three,
and five minute whipping and after 10 minute standing
(Kampf et al., 2003)
Fig. 4: Size distribution of egg albumen foam bubbles in 8% egg albumen
concentration, with one, three, and five minute whipping immediate
formation and after 10 minute standing (Kampf et al., 2003)
 5.2 Whey Protein
• derived from dairy and is a by-product of the
cheese-making process
• WPI took 50 min of whipping time to produce
foam density (FD) of 0.3 g/cm3 and was longer
than that of EA foam (20 min)
• The surface hydrophobicity account for the
better foam ability of WPI (Abirached et al.
2012)
 5.3 Soy Protein
• Soy protein is a protein is made from soybean
meal that has been de-hulled and defatted
• SPI @ 5 g/100 g → FD of 0.8 g/cm3 but @ 10
g/100 g → FD to about 0.5 g/ cm3
• Due to the compact tertiary structure of the
soy protein, which provides poor foaming
properties
 5.4 Guar Foaming Albumin
• Guar foaming albumin (GFA) is an albumin
fraction extracted from guar meal, with high
foaming and stabilizing ability
• The foaming activity = 10X of EA
• average bubble size of GFA is half of that of EA
• Smaller foam bubbles can withstand heavier
load and the stiffer and stronger the foams
become
 6. Foam Stabilizers
• decrease the instability of foams, polysaccharides are
employed as stabilizers
• being hydrophilic, they do not adsorb at the interface
• enhance the stability of foam proteins by a thickening
or a gelling effect
• act by either increasing the viscosity of the continuous
phase or by forming a 3D network that retards the
movement of components within the foam
• Example: CMC, cellulose gum, xanthan gum, Arabic
gum, starches, pectins and gelatin
Fig. 5: Liquid drainage from foam cells
(Sangamithra A, et. al., 2015)
 7. Drying and types
• Continuous Foam Mat Dryer
– continuous belt vacuum dryer for drying of milk foam was designed, (Schoppet et
al. 1965; Aceto et al. 1972), where the foamed milk of 45% w/w solids was
deposited on the stainless steel belt, tensed over heating and cooling drums.
Various combinations of radiant heaters were placed above and below the belt to
precondition the feed, and to dry the product. Then, the dried product was
scrapped from the belt, which rolled over the cooling drum.
• Microwave Foam mat Drying (MFD)
– foams are dried in a thin layer which resulted in limited throughput even in
optimized drying conditions, is a main drawback of the foam mat drying. This could
be overcome by the use of microwaves
• Foam Mat Freeze-Drying
– manufacture dehydrated products with excellent final quality because of the low
temperatures during the process and the direct sublimation of water from solid to
vapor states.
8. Quality of foam-dried products
• Better quality, porous and can be easily
reconstituted and cost-effective
• Process include suitability for all types of
juices
• Rapid drying at lower temperature, retention
of nutritional quality
• Considerably cheaper than vacuum, freeze
and spray drying method
 9. Comparison of different drying methods (Z.
Hardy and V. A. Jideani, 2017)

Simplicity Product Rapid Uniform Storage Affordability

quality drying heating reliability

Foam-mat
drying Y Y Y Y Y Y
Freeze
drying N Y Y Y Y N
Spray drying N Y Y Y Y N
Microwave
drying N Y Y Y Y N
 10. Reference
A. Abd Karim, C. Chee Wai. (1999) Foam-mat drying of starfruit (Averrhoa carambola
L.) puree. Stability and air drying characteristics, Food Chemistry, 64, 337-343
Arun Muthukumaran , Cristina Ratti & Vijaya G. S. Raghavan. (2008) Foam-Mat Freeze
Drying of Egg White—Mathematical Modeling Part II: Freeze Drying and
Modeling, Drying Technology, 26:4, 513-518
Ana María Chaux-Gutiérrez, Adriana Barbosa Santos, Diana Maria Granda- Restrepo
& Maria Aparecida Mauro. (2017) Foam mat drying of mango: Effect of
processing parameters on the drying kinetic and product quality, Drying
Technology, 35:5, 631-641
Dattatreya M. Kadam , Robin A. Wilson , Sumandeep Kaur & Manisha. (2012),
Influence of Foam Mat Drying on Quality of Tomato Powder, International Journal
of Food Properties, 15:1, 211-220
Jalal Dehghannyaa, Mahdi Pourahmada, Babak Ghanbarzadeha, Hossein Ghaffarib.
(2019) Heat and mass transfer enhancement during foam-mat drying process of
lime juice: Impact of convective hot air temperature, International Journal of
Thermal Sciences, 135, 30–43
Kudra, T. and Ratti, C. (2006) Foam-mat drying: Energy and cost analyses. Can. Biosyst.
Eng. 48, 3.27–3.32
Mehran Azizpour , Mohebbat Mohebbi, Mohammad Hosein Haddad
Khodaparast .(2016) Effects of foam-mat drying temperature on physico-
chemical and microstructural properties of shrimp powder, Innovative Food
Science and Emerging Technologies ,34, 122–126
Mei Ling Ng, Rabiha Sulaiman (2018) Development of beetroot (Beta vulgaris)
powder using foam mat drying, LWT - Food Science and Technology, 88, 80-86
Rajkumar P., Kailappan R., Viswanathan R., Raghavan G.S.V., Ratti C. (2007) Foam
mat drying of alphonso mango pulp, Drying Technology, 25 (2), 357–365.
Robin A. Wilson, Dattatreya M. Kadam, Sonia Chadha and Monika Sharma, (2012)
Foam Mat Drying Characteristics of Mango Pulp, International Journal of Food
Science and Nutrition Engineering, 2(4): 63-69
Sangamithra a, Sivakumar Venkatachalam, Swamy Gabriela John and Kannan
Kuppuswamy. (2015), Foam mat drying of food materials: A review, Journal of
Food Processing and Preservation, 39, 3165–3174
Talita Szlapak Franco, Camila Augusto Perussello, Luciana de Souza Neves
Ellendersen,Maria Lucia Masson. (2015), Foam mat drying of yacon juice:
Experimental analysis and computer simulation, Journal of Food Engineering,
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