Internship OR Thesis opportunity in TFTAK!

We are happy to offer a great Internship or Master/Bachelor degree thesis in TFTAK! Read more from below what is it all about.

Topic: Utilization of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) for Plant Protein Research.

Aims:

• Develop, test, and implement scanning electron microscopy (SEM) method for plant protein powders.
• Develop and implement sample preparation procedure to investigate the morphology of the water insoluble plant protein particles in their water dispersions.
• Investigate and compare the morphology of different plant-based protein powders with SEM

Including

• Background search and description about SEM method
• Vitrification and lyophilization procedure as sample preparation

Background

Plant proteins are high potential alternatives for animal proteins. However, the quality and functional properties of plant proteins tend to be lower compared to animal proteins. Furthermore, the plant protein technology is very young compared to animal proteins. Recently, lots of research is being carried out to characterize the properties of the plant-based proteins, and to create tasty and nutritional and meat- and dairy analogues.

Structural differences of the plant proteins determine their functional, biological, and mechanical properties. SEM is a surface magnification tool that allows to image the structure, shape, size, and surface morphology of plant proteins.

Most of the plant-based protein powders are not fully water-soluble and several plant powders used for dairy alternatives are perceived gritty or grainy. Understanding the morphological properties of the gritty as well as smooth particles would enable to strive for the best plant-based dairy analogues.

Supervisor: Kadi Jakobson

Language: English

Starting time: October 2022

If interested or for additional information, please contact kadi.jakobson@tftak.eu