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International Journal of Food Science and Agriculture

ISSN Online: 2578-3475 ISSN Print: 2578-3467 CODEN: IJFSJ3
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ArticleOpen Access http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/ijfsa.2026.09.009

Impact of Ultrasound-assisted Treatment on the Solubility, Emulsifying Properties, and Gelation Behavior of a Plant-protein Model System

Wensheng Che

School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, University College Cork, Cork, T12K8AF, Ireland.

*Corresponding author: Wensheng Che

Published: September 29, 2026

Abstract

Ultrasound-Assisted Treatment is a solvent-free way to change plant protein function. The workbook has three repeated measurements of the dispersion of a source-unspecified plant-protein model when treated with a 20 kHz probe at a nominal power of 400 W for 0, 5, 10, 20, and 30 minutes. Solubility, emulsifying index (EAI), water-holding capacity (WHC), storage modulus (G'), particle size, and zeta potential were all measured. Among the windows that were tested, the 20-minute condition had the highest solubility (73.90%), EAI (28.67 m²/g), WHC (95.40%), and G' (8.57 kPa); it also had the smallest particle size (244.00 nm) and the most negative zeta potential (-25.73 mV). At 30 minutes, all six indicators had changed from those at 20 minutes. The pattern is that of a treatment-window effect, not a linear dose-response, but the supplied materials do not list the protein source or some of the operating and assay parameters. Therefore, 20 minutes should be considered the best-performing tested condition for this dataset and is not necessarily the overall optimum. The results above provide a hypothesis for source-specific verification of ultrasound-assisted processing in plant-protein foods.

Keyword

Plant-protein model system; ultrasound; solubility; emulsifying activity index; gelation; particle size; zeta potential

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Copyright

© 2026 by the author(s).
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not modified or adapted.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

How to cite this paper

Impact of Ultrasound-assisted Treatment on the Solubility, Emulsifying Properties, and Gelation Behavior of a Plant-protein Model System

How to cite this paper: Wensheng Che. (2026) Impact of Ultrasound-assisted Treatment on the Solubility, Emulsifying Properties, and Gelation Behavior of a Plant-protein Model System. International Journal of Food Science and Agriculture, 10(3), 277-281.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/ijfsa.2026.09.009