Figure 2- Small- and wide-angle powder X-ray diffraction spectra of (A) 100% FKB after 60 days, (B) 50:50 blend of FKB:FPO after 60 days, and (C) 100% FPO after 60 days storage at room temperature.
Melting profile
The thermal properties of fractionated pequi oil mixed with fractionated Kpangnan butter at different ratios and storage times at room temperature are shown in Table 4 and Fig.3. The X-ray diffraction analysis showed that after four days of static crystallization at room temperature, the crystal polymorphic transition was not complete except for fractionated 80:20 and 90:10 (%w/w) pequi oil: fractionated Kpangnan butter, which had significantly higher melting points (Fig. 1). Since crystallization of the blends after four days of storage was not complete, different mixtures of metastable crystal forms were observed, making the interpretation of melting profiles difficult. However, after 12 days of storage, all blends were in the β2polymorphic form, with melting peaks between 32.6 oC to 42.1 oC, which potentially made them a promising CBE for addition to CB to make chocolate. Moreover, blends containing 70% to 90% fractionated pequi oil could be directly used as a 100% cocoa butter alternative in compound chocolate formulations.
Table 4- Melting points (°C) and enthalpies of fusion (J/g) for fractionated pequi oil (FPO) and fractionated Kpangnan butter (FKB) and their mixtures (w/w) after 4, 12, and 60 days of storage at 22oC. Values represent the means and standard deviations of n=2 replicates.