Effect of different derivatives of paraffin waxes on crystallization of eutectic mixture of cocoa butter-coconut oil

Paraffin wax is a mixture of numerous unbranched hydrocarbons used frequently for various purposes: to improve the shelf life of products containing lipid system and develop more shiny products. However, because of its complex nature, the effect of such molecular structure on the solid phase behavior of lipids is hardly unstated. Hence in our study, we focus on understanding the impact of derivatives of paraffin wax on the lipid system. In the current work, three unbranched derivatives of paraffin wax: Eicosane C (20), Pentacosane C (25) and Triacontane C (30) were selected as additives. These n-alkanes are specifically added to the eutectic mixture of cocoa butter (CB) and coconut oil (CO) (ECB-CO) to observe the effect on thermal, morphological, rheological properties and crystallization kinetics with respect to the carbon chain length. Results from our study illustrate that melting and crystallization temperature, storage modulus and solid fat content (SFC) increases after the addition of 1 wt% of C (20), C (25). In contrast, there is a phase separation for 1 wt% C (30). Further similar study with addition of n-alkanes to pure CB and CO reveals that the interaction of n-alkanes with ECB-CO is dominated by the interaction of n-alkanes with CO instead of CB. Therefore, our findings provide insight into the effect of addition of n-alkanes having different carbon chain length and their respective concentration on crystallization process of CB and CO. This will definitely help to design the processes for products containing such model systems.