Nanoparticle Ice Cream
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On the itemized list of things that I personally would be unable to live without, ice cream sits somewhere between “my phone” and “rainboots in Portland.” One research team at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville is working to make ice cream even better by adding plant-based nanocrystals to prevent large ice crystals from forming in your creamy treat. And it would even be vegan! The problem is that large ice crystals can give your ice cream a grainy texture. The stabilizers currently used in ice cream, like guar gum or locust bean gum, don’t completely inhibit crystallization. Tao Wu and his team sought an alternative in cellulose nanocrystals found in wood pulp. In March 2022, they presented their results at the American Chemical Society meeting, ice crystal growth was much more limited in samples containing the cellulose nanocrystals than in samples containing guar gum. So I’m raising my pint of Rocky Road to a brighter future: one where our ice cream is even creamier and delicious than it already is!
Author Bio
Natalie Wang is currently working on her undergraduate degrees in Neuroscience and Medicine, Science, and the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University as a Hodson Trust Scholar. Her research interests are in DNA damage and repair, as well as post-operative delirium in older patients. Natalie started volunteering with WIS PDX in 2019 as a member of the outreach and education team, and is now the producer and a co-host of WIS's podcast, WISterhood. When not listening to music or doom-scrolling on Twitter, she can be found checking closets for Narnia.