Enhanced thermal stability of soy protein particles by a combined treatment of microfluidic homogenisation and preheating.

Recently, the pursuit of having a healthy diet has heightened the superiority of protein‐enriched beverages; however, this is challenged by the heat‐induced aggregation and gelation of proteins at high concentration. In this study, a facile and efficient strategy of combined preheating and microfluidic homogenisation treatment (CPMHT) was tested to enhance the heat stability of soy proteins (SPs). Results revealed that the CPMHT promoted the denaturation and unfolding of SPs, evidenced by the reduction of β‐sheet content and a slight red shift of fluorescence intensity. Increasing the number of CPMHT cycle led to an apparent decrease in the surface hydrophobicity and total sulfhydryl groups of soy proteins. In addition, when the suspensions (10% (w/v)) of modified soy proteins at higher CPMHT cycle were reheated at 100 °C for 30 min, no gelation was found, along with lower viscosities and higher flow behaviour index. The present study provides an approaching to enhance the heat stability of soy proteins by CPMHT, which might expand the application of soy proteins in protein‐enriched beverages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]