| Mission |
The mission of the group is;'To construct physical models that relate molecular properties of ingredients with macroscopic functional properties of food materials and to apply these models to manipulate functional properties of food materials and develop novel functional structures'. In order to bridge the gap between molecular and macroscopic length-scales, mesoscopic issues are essential. For this mesoscopic length scale we focus on molecular assembly (with and without external fields), structure and domain formation, phase behaviour and effects of shear on the former three aspects. The models are constructed using analytical theory, computer simulations, literature data, multi-dimensional genetic function generation, information technology and experiment. The application of our models on the macroscopic level focusses on the control and design of gelation, texture, stability, release and sensory perception. The application of our models on the mesoscopic level focusses on the design of novel mesostructures ('mesostructure engineering'). The research philosophy of the group is to work on projects that contain two types of research at the same time, which are intrinsically orthogonal to one another. One being fundamental research, i.e. only curiosity driven and not driven by having any application or end-user in mind. The other being user-inspired research (i.e. with some end-user in mind). |
