Influence of pH and biopolymer ratio on sodium caseinate—guar gum interactions in aqueous solutions and in O/W emulsions

Abstract Many colloidal food systems contain both proteins and polysaccharides. In the present study, the phase behaviour of mixed sodium caseinate—guar gum aqueous solutions was investigated: segregative phase separation was observed in solutions containing at least 0.04% of guar gum and 1.6% of sodium caseinate, thus indicating the limited compatibility of the polysaccharide and the protein. In addition, the functionality of guar gum as gravitational stabilizer in sodium caseinate stabilized 25% O/W emulsions was checked. At pH conditions significantly larger than the iso-electric point (IEP) of sodium caseinate, addition of small amounts of guar gum (0.1–0.2%) gave raise to fast serum separation, which was thought to be due to depletion flocculation. Increasing the polysaccharide concentration and/or the oil volume fraction limited the degree of phase separation, since depletion flocculation induced a sufficiently strong three-dimensional network to withstand gravity effects. Considering different guar gum concentrations at pH 5.0, 5.5, 6.0 and 6.5, it became obvious that the phase separation behaviour in the absence of guar gum was largely affected by the pH, whereas in the presence of at least 0.1% of guar gum it became mainly affected by the guar gum concentration. Hereby, higher guar gum concentrations introduced a longer delay time before separation could effectively be detected. As laser diffraction particle size analysis results were not significantly affected by guar gum addition, it was concluded that the guar gum-induced flocculation was weak in nature and largely reversible. Combining all results, it was concluded that guar gum could effectively be used to prevent phase separation problems that could occur due to flocculation around the protein's IEP, provided that at least 1.0% of guar gum is added to ensure depletion stabilization by formation of a sufficiently strong three-dimensional network to overcome separation effects. Increasing the ionic strength through addition of salt further reinforces the network in order to prevent its collapse due to gravity.