New powder material obtained from spent coffee ground and whey protein; Thermal and morphological analysis

Abstract Currently, the food industry generates large amounts of agroindustry waste. Specifically, the coffee and cheese industry produce spent coffee ground and whey respectively. Therefore, it is important to find applications for these residues allowing the food industry to be friendly with the environment. The main goal of this research was to evaluate some morphological and thermodynamic properties of a powder product obtained by spray drying, from the mixture of Spent Coffee Ground (SCG) with Whey Concentrated (WC). The methodology includes the mixture of different combinations of SCG (4, 10 & 16%) with WC; afterward, the mixture was spray dried using an inlet temperature of 170 °C. The powder characterization includes: Moisture, Water Activity (Aw), Glass Transition temperature (Tg). In addition, isothermal curves were obtained. As a result, the moisture content and Aw of the powder were 3.25 ± 0.18 and 0.252 ± 0.01, while the bulk density was 0.495 ± 0.10 g/cm3, showing a significant correlation (p