The effects of process conditions on rheological properties of functional citrus fibre suspensions

[Display omitted] •Technological and nutritional aspects of commercial citrus fibre were studied.•Fibre suspensions exhibit a typical weak gel behaviour.•The strength of the gel increases with increasing power up to a plateau.•The network extension is almost constant with changing operating conditions.•In-vitro test evidenced a reduction of intestinal absorption of fats and glucose. A deeper knowledge of rheological effects of dietary fibre in aqueous suspensions and their dependence on operating conditions adopted in their preparation seems necessary to design properly systems with expected rheological properties. It is known that changes in “mixing intensity” can modify the observed rheological properties of fibre suspensions; nevertheless only a small number of previously published data is available, and, usually, they are related to technological parameters such as speed of mixing (rpm), homogenisation pressure, residence time, etc. In the present work, the energy and the power of mixing were used, in a systematic investigation, and it was observed that by increasing both of them a stronger three-dimensional network is obtained, as the result of the interactions among the dispersed particles. Nevertheless, when higher levels of energy or power are used, no further increase in network strength can be obtained. The proposed approach and the obtained results can be relevant for industrial applications in order to scale-up the production of fibres’ suspensions.