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Jitesh Jayakumar

PhD Programme: Nanoscience, Materials and Chemical Engineering
Research group: FOODIE – Food Innovation & Engineering
Supervisors: Carme Güell Saperas & Montserrat Ferrando Cogollos

Bio

Jitesh has done his Bachelors of Engineering in Biotechnology from M. S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology (India) and got his Masters in Food Technology and Nutrition from Lund University, Sweden. During his bachelors, he had the opportunity to intern at National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), India. Here he learnt various techniques used for screening diseases in cattle. For his Bachelor thesis, he worked at National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS) on the colour perception of honeybees. Once he was done with his bachelors, he interned at Defense Food Research Laboratory (DFRL), where he gained a strong foundation in the field of food science. During his Masters in Sweden, he had the opportunity to work with AAK for his master thesis, where he was working on determining the stability of different forms of fats in fat-filled milk powders. He also won as a part of a team, the best innovation award by the Lund University Innovation Center for developing a vegan mud-cake instant mix. He was also involved in a project with Arla foods in developing a protocol to determine the wettability of milk powders.

Project: Coalescence dynamics of emulsions stabilized with insect proteins using microfluidics

The formation of emulsion droplets occurs in milliseconds and in this small fraction of time, the adsorption of emulsifiers is often not complete, thereby leading to coalescence. These small time-scales makes it difficult to monitor and quantify adsorption and coalescence during the process. To analyze and study about coalescence immediately after droplet formation, a microfluidic device can be used. The device will be used to assess for the first time the coalescence of oil-in-water emulsions stabilized with insect proteins, extracted from black soldier fly. The study will be carried out by varying the flow rates of the continuous and the dispersed phase, the concentration and the ionic strength of the protein, pH of the continuous phase and also by mimicking the gastrointestinal tract. The process of droplet formation and the coalescence will be observed through an inverted microscope.

Open Access publications

  • Wang, Junjing; Jousse, Morane; Jayakumar, Jitesh; Fernández-Arteaga, Alejandro; de Lamo-Castellví, Silvia; Ferrando, Montserrat; Güell, Carme. 2021. "Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia illucens) Protein Concentrates as a Sustainable Source to Stabilize O/W Emulsions Produced by a Low-Energy High-Throughput Emulsification Technology". Foods 10, no. 5: 1048. View full-text

Outreach activities

  • European Researchers' Night 2019: "Insectes, els nous ingredients del futur".

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