Chocolate at a Sliding Interface

摘要

The tribological properties of a chocolate-lubricated tribe-system have been measured with a pin-on-disk tribometer employing poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE)/zirconia (ZrO_2) as the tribo-pair. For this study, a series of test chocolate samples was prepared by systematic variation of conching type, particle-size distribution, milk fat/cocoa butter ratio, and lecithin content. Tribological measurements were found to be sensitive to lecithin content for all particle sizes investigated, while only being sensitive to particle size at high lecithin content. Rheological measurements were found to be sensitive to lecithin content in the case of small particle size, and sensitive to particle size in the case of low lecithin content.