Multi-scale modelling of polymers: Perspectives for food materials

Exaggerated expectations in ancient starch research and the need for new taphonomic and authenticity criteria

Ancient starch research illuminates aspects of human ecology and economic botany that drove human evolution and cultural complexity over time, with a special emphasis on past technology, diet, health, and adaptation to changing environments and socio-economic systems. However, lapses in prevailing starch research demonstrate the exaggerated expectations for the field that have been generated over the last few decades. This includes an absence of explanation for the millennial-scale survivability of a biochemically degradable polymer, and difficulties in establishing authenticity and taxonomic identification. This paper outlines new taphonomic and authenticity criteria to guide future work toward designing research programs that fully exploit the potential of ancient starch while considering growing demands from readers, editors, and reviewers that look for objective compositional identification of putatively ancient starch granules.

Molecular thermodynamics for food science and engineering

We argue that thanks to molecular modeling approaches, many thermodynamic properties required in Food Science and Food Engineering will be calculable within a few hours from first principles in a near future. These new possibilities will enable to bridge via multiscale modeling composition, process and storage effects to reach global optimization, innovative concepts for food or its packaging. An outlook of techniques and a series of examples are given in this perspective. We emphasize solute chemical potentials in polymers, liquids and their mixtures as they cannot be understood and estimated without theory. The presented atomistic and coarse-grained methods offer a natural framework to their conceptualization in polynary systems, entangled or crosslinked homo- or heteropolymers.

Multi-scale model of food drying: Current status and challenges

For a long time, food engineers have been trying to describe the physical phenomena that occur during food processing especially drying. Physics-based theoretical modeling is an important tool for the food engineers to reduce the hurdles of experimentation. Drying of food is a multi-physics phenomenon such as coupled heat and mass transfer. Moreover, food structure is multi-scale in nature, and the microstructural features play a great role in the food processing specially in drying. Previously simple macroscopic model was used to describe the drying phenomena which can give a little description about the smaller scale. The multiscale modeling technique can handle all the phenomena that occur during drying. In this special kind of modeling approach, the single scale models from bigger to smaller scales are interconnected. With the help of multiscale modeling framework, the transport process associated with drying can be studied on a smaller scale and the resulting information can be transferred to the bigger scale. This article is devoted to discussing the state of the art multi-scale modeling, its prospect and challenges in the field of drying technology. This article has also given some directions to how to overcome the challenges for successful implementation of multi-scale modeling.

Multiscale analysis of structure development in expanded starch snacks

In this paper we perform a multiscale analysis of the food structuring process of the expansion of starchy snack foods like keropok, which obtains a solid foam structure. In particular, we want to investigate the validity of the hypothesis of Kokini and coworkers, that expansion is optimal at the moisture content, where the glass transition and the boiling line intersect. In our analysis we make use of several tools, (1) time scale analysis from the field of physical transport phenomena, (2) the scale separation map (SSM) developed within a multiscale simulation framework of complex automata, (3) the supplemented state diagram (SSD), depicting phase transition and glass transition lines, and (4) a multiscale simulation model for the bubble expansion. Results of the time scale analysis are plotted in the SSD, and give insight into the dominant physical processes involved in expansion. Furthermore, the results of the time scale analysis are used to construct the SSM, which has aided us in the construction of the multiscale simulation model. Simulation results are plotted in the SSD. This clearly shows that the hypothesis of Kokini is qualitatively true, but has to be refined. Our results show that bubble expansion is optimal for moisture content, where the boiling line for gas pressure of 4 bars intersects the isoviscosity line of the critical viscosity 10(6) Pa.s, which runs parallel to the glass transition line.

Soft matter approaches to food structuring

We give an overview of the many opportunities that arise from approaching food structuring from the perspective of soft matter physics. This branch of physics employs concepts that build upon the seminal work of van der Waals, such as free volume, the mean field, and effective temperatures. All these concepts aid scientists in understanding and controlling the thermodynamics and (slow) dynamics of structured foods. We discuss the use of these concepts in four topics, which will also be addressed in a forthcoming Faraday Discussion on food structuring.

A reoptimized GROMOS force field for hexopyranose-based carbohydrates accounting for the relative free energies of ring conformers, anomers, epimers, hydroxymethyl rotamers, and glycosidic linkage conformers

This article presents a reoptimization of the GROMOS 53A6 force field for hexopyranose-based carbohydrates (nearly equivalent to 45A4 for pure carbohydrate systems) into a new version 56A(CARBO) (nearly equivalent to 53A6 for non-carbohydrate systems). This reoptimization was found necessary to repair a number of shortcomings of the 53A6 (45A4) parameter set and to extend the scope of the force field to properties that had not been included previously into the parameterization procedure. The new 56A(CARBO) force field is characterized by: (i) the formulation of systematic build-up rules for the automatic generation of force-field topologies over a large class of compounds including (but not restricted to) unfunctionalized polyhexopyranoses with arbritrary connectivities; (ii) the systematic use of enhanced sampling methods for inclusion of experimental thermodynamic data concerning slow or unphysical processes into the parameterization procedure; and (iii) an extensive validation against available experimental data in solution and, to a limited extent, theoretical (quantum-mechanical) data in the gas phase. At present, the 56A(CARBO) force field is restricted to compounds of the elements C, O, and H presenting single bonds only, no oxygen functions other than alcohol, ether, hemiacetal, or acetal, and no cyclic segments other than six-membered rings (separated by at least one intermediate atom). After calibration, this force field is shown to reproduce well the relative free energies of ring conformers, anomers, epimers, hydroxymethyl rotamers, and glycosidic linkage conformers. As a result, the 56A(CARBO) force field should be suitable for: (i) the characterization of the dynamics of pyranose ring conformational transitions (in simulations on the microsecond timescale); (ii) the investigation of systems where alternative ring conformations become significantly populated; (iii) the investigation of anomerization or epimerization in terms of free-energy differences; and (iv) the design of simulation approaches accelerating the anomerization process along an unphysical pathway.

Conformational properties of glucose-based disaccharides investigated using molecular dynamics simulations with local elevation umbrella sampling

Explicit-solvent molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of the 11 glucose-based disaccharides in water at 300K and 1bar are reported. The simulations were carried out with the GROMOS 45A4 force-field and the sampling along the glycosidic dihedral angles phi and psi was artificially enhanced using the local elevation umbrella sampling (LEUS) method. The trajectories are analyzed in terms of free-energy maps, stable and metastable conformational states (relative free energies and estimated transition timescales), intramolecular H-bonds, single molecule configurational entropies, and agreement with experimental data. All disaccharides considered are found to be characterized either by a single stable (overwhelmingly populated) state ((1-->n)-linked disaccharides with n=1, 2, 3, or 4) or by two stable (comparably populated and differing in the third glycosidic dihedral angle omega ; gg or gt) states with a low interconversion barrier ((1-->6)-linked disaccharides). Metastable (anti-phi or anti-psi) states are also identified with relative free energies in the range of 8-22 kJ mol(-1). The 11 compounds can be classified into four families: (i) the alpha(1-->1)alpha-linked disaccharide trehalose (axial-axial linkage) presents no metastable state, the lowest configurational entropy, and no intramolecular H-bonds; (ii) the four alpha(1-->n)-linked disaccharides (n=1, 2, 3, or 4; axial-equatorial linkage) present one metastable (anti-psi) state, an intermediate configurational entropy, and two alternative intramolecular H-bonds; (iii) the four beta(1-->n)-linked disaccharides (n=1, 2, 3, or 4; equatorial-equatorial linkage) present two metastable (anti-phi and anti-psi) states, an intermediate configurational entropy, and one intramolecular H-bond; (iv) the two (1-->6)-linked disaccharides (additional glycosidic dihedral angle) present no (isomaltose) or a pair of (gentiobiose) metastable (anti-phi) states, the highest configurational entropy, and no intramolecular H-bonds. The observed conformational preferences appear to be dictated by four main driving forces (ring conformational preferences, exo-anomeric effect, steric constraints, and possible presence of a third glycosidic dihedral angle), leaving a secondary role to intramolecular H-bonding and specific solvation effects. In spite of the weak conformational driving force attributed to solvent-exposed H-bonds in water (highly polar protic solvent), intramolecular H-bonds may still have a significant influence on the physico-chemical properties of the disaccharide by decreasing its hydrophilicity. Along with previous work, the results also complete the suggestion of a spectrum of approximate transition timescales for carbohydrates up to the disaccharide level, namely: approximately 30 ps (hydroxyl groups), approximately 1 ns (free lactol group, free hydroxymethyl groups, glycosidic dihedral angleomega in (1-->6)-linked disaccharides), approximately 10 ns to 2 micros (ring conformation, glycosidic dihedral angles phi and psi). The calculated average values of the glycosidic torsional angles agree well with the available experimental data, providing validation for the force-field and simulation methodology employed.

Conformation, dynamics, solvation and relative stabilities of selected β-hexopyranoses in water: a molecular dynamics study with the gromos 45A4 force field

The present article reports long timescale (200 ns) simulations of four beta-D-hexopyranoses (beta-D-glucose, beta-D-mannose, beta-D-galactose and beta-D-talose) using explicit-solvent (water) molecular dynamics and vacuum stochastic dynamics simulations together with the GROMOS 45A4 force field. Free-energy and solvation free-energy differences between the four compounds are also calculated using thermodynamic integration. Along with previous experimental findings, the present results suggest that the formation of intramolecular hydrogen-bonds in water is an 'opportunistic' consequence of the close proximity of hydrogen-bonding groups, rather than a major conformational driving force promoting this proximity. In particular, the conformational preferences of the hydroxymethyl group in aqueous environment appear to be dominated by 1,3-syn-diaxial repulsion, with gauche and solvation effects being secondary, and intramolecular hydrogen-bonding essentially negligible. The rotational dynamics of the exocyclic hydroxyl groups, which cannot be probed experimentally, is found to be rapid (10-100 ps timescale) and correlated (flip-flop hydrogen-bonds interconverting preferentially through an asynchronous disrotatory pathway). Structured solvent environments are observed between the ring and lactol oxygen atoms, as well as between the 4-OH and hydroxymethyl groups. The calculated stability differences between the four compounds are dominated by intramolecular effects, while the corresponding differences in solvation free energies are small. An inversion of the stereochemistry at either C(2) or C(4) from equatorial to axial is associated with a raise in free energy. Finally, the particularly low hydrophilicity of beta-D-talose appears to be caused by the formation of a high-occurrence hydrogen-bonded bridge between the 1,3-syn-diaxial 2-OH and 4-OH groups. Overall, good agreement is found with available experimental and theoretical data on the structural, dynamical, solvation and energetic properties of these compounds. However, this detailed comparison also reveals some discrepancies, suggesting the need (and providing a solid basis) for further refinement.