Thin flowing honey products in squeezable bottles are growing in market size. During storage, crystals may form in the honey, and this affects both flow properties and visual appearance, leading to customer rejection and food waste.
In the student project, we will gain fundamental understanding of crystal formation in honeys and how this is affected by sugar composition and storage time and temperature. A central question is whether it is possible to quantify the number of crystals and relate this to the storage temperature and crystallization rate. Overall, we want to determine the theoretical shelf life of honey in relation to crystal formation.
The main analytical tools will be polarized light microscopy and differential scanning calorimetry but a range of other instruments can also be included.
The project is aligned to UN's SGD:
