Particle morphology and powder properties during spray drying of maltodextrin and whey protein mixtures

Application behavior of spray dried powders such as reconstitution behavior and flowability is indirectly influenced by powder particle morphology. We here investigated the influence of the drying conditions and composition for whey protein (WP), maltodextrin (MD) and their mixtures on particle morphology during pilot-scale spray drying. Even though all powders showed a variety of morphologies, MD powders contained more wrinkled particles and had high bulk density, whereas pure WP powders contained more hollow particles. Mixture powders (75:25 WP:MD) show more hollow particles with increasing inlet temperature, with a lower bulk density. The observed morphologies for different formulations corresponded roughly to previous observations during sessile single droplet drying, but the results indicate that the morphology is also influenced by the faster pilot-scale drying, which was not evident in the slower single droplet drying. (c) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).