Visualising the Structural Features that Hinder Processing of Wheat Bran for Novel Food Ingredients

Purpose and goal

** Denna text är maskinöversatt ** Wheat bran is the main by-product of wheat milling, which is mainly currently used for animal feed. Wheat bran contains though valuable biomolecules that could be used as functional food ingredients. KTH and Lantmännen have developed processing methods to fractionate wheat bran into their molecular components. However, one challenge is the complex interconnection and organization of the cereal cell wall. The aim of the project is to visualize the multiscale structural features of wheat bran that prevent its successful high-yield fractionation.

Expected effects and result

** Denna text är maskinöversatt ** The project will offer Lantmännen the basic knowledge to increase the extraction yield of wet fractionation processes from wheat bran, a widely available side stream from their flour production. This will inform the industrial scale-up of the processes to obtain valuable and healthy food ingredients from wheat bran. In addition, this project will create tools for multiscale analysis of grains, which can be directly replicated and transferred to other primary producers and end users working with other grains such as barley, oats and rye.

Planned approach and implementation

** Denna text är maskinöversatt ** We propose the integration of synchrotron tomography with wide-angle X-ray scattering scanning to reveal the organization of the molecular components of wheat bran at different length scales. This is needed to relate larger multiscale features (> 1m) with smaller molecularly ordered structures (10-30 nm), such as crystallinity, which is relevant for grain biopolymers. This will generate the first reported 3D image maps of wheat bran after various wet fractionation processes.