Effect of Corn Starch Pregelatinization Temperature on Gel Properties and 3D Printing Performance of Tilapia Myofibrillar Protein Lotion

This study used tilapia myofibrillar proteins (MP) as the base material, corn oil as the oil phase, and incorporated corn starch to construct emulsion gels, aiming to investigate the effects of pregelatinized corn starch (CS) at varying temperatures (25, 40, 60, 80, and 100 ℃) on the microstructure, particle size, rheological properties, stability and 3D printing properties of the emulsion gels. The findings demonstrated that increasing the pregelatinization temperature of CS significantly enhanced both the storage modulus (G') and apparent viscosity of the emulsion gel. The most pronounced improvement was observed when the pregelatinization temperature of CS was 60 ℃ (CS60). Raman spectroscopy analysis indicated that no covalent interactions were formed between MP and pregelatinized CS. Gel strength analysis further revealed that hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interactions were the dominant intermolecular forces stabilizing the emulsion gel. This suggested that the starch molecules released from pregelatinized CS could form a denser three-dimensional network with MP through these intermolecular interactions. In addition, the 3D printing results showed that higher CS pregelatinization temperatures improved the texture of the emulsion gel, with CS60 exhibiting the highest printing precision. Overall, this study elucidated the underlying mechanism whereby pregelatinized CS enhances the properties of MP-based emulsion gels and provides a theoretical basis for optimizing MP gel performance and 3D printability through starch modification.