Impact of pre-processing and extraction method on physico-chemical characteristics of wheat arabinoxylan

Research Project, 2019 – 2020

Purpose and goal: The goals of the project are i) to understand the effect of extraction methods of arabinoxylan from wheat bran on their physical conformation. ii) to increase the knowledge among young scientists and industrial partners on how neutron techniques can be used, beamtime obtained and analysis of experiments iii) to connect to experts in the field of neutron scattering. Expected results and effects: Wheat bran is a major agro-industrial by-product produced during the dry milling of common wheat into flour. Wheat bran contains a large amount of polymers, which could be functionalized and used in food or as material after extraction. Detailed characterisation of AX from wheat bran undergoing different pre-treatment and extraction has until now not been studied why this project will enable increased understanding of the impact of extraction process on arabinoxylan functionality and, in future its impact in more complex products. Approach and implementation: Arabinoxylan will be extracted through different processes, it will be chemically analysed and its rheological properties will be defined. Beamtime experiments will be designed in collaboration with international experts and its scattering data will be correlated to chemical composition and physical behvaiour of the extracted AX.