Oleogels of Some Plant Waxes: Characterization and Comparison with Sunflower Wax Oleogel

Abstract

This study aimed to develop the oleogels of teawax (TWO), rapeseed wax (RWO), orange peel wax(OWO), rose wax (RsWO), and beery wax (BWO), and tocompare their properties with sunflower wax oleogel(SWO). Since the literature lacks most of these newoleogels, the gained information would be valuable. Thewax oleogels were analyzed for their main physicochemi-cal, thermal, structural, rheological, and sensory properties.The minimum gelation concentrations (C*) ranged from1.0% (SWO) to 25% (RWO), with gelation times of0.3–205 min, respectively. While polarized light micros-copy images showed large crystal aggregates, X-ray dif-fraction patterns proved the presence ofβ ́ polymorphcrystals and some amorphous solids. Rheological analysesindicated that the samples had a weak-gel structure, andwere stable until around 30–70 C temperatures. Further,the oleogel samples showed a thixotropic rheologicalbehavior with force-related recovery at 10 C. Quantitativesensory descriptive analysis (QDA) proved that there weresome differences among the samples for sensory hardness,spreadability, liquefaction, rancid, waxy, and cooling attri-butes. Also, tea aroma in TWO, bitterness in OWO, androse aroma in RsWO were quite dominant. In conclusion,RWO and OWO seemed unsuitable for food applicationsdue to very high C* and bitterness, while RsWO and BWOcould be used in food formulations.