Study On The Stability Of Vitamin K₁ In Infant Formula Milk Powder

Breast milk is the best source of nutrition for newborns. However, the percentage of breast-fed newborns is relatively low due to some reasons. Infant formula is the main source of vitamin for infants. Deficiency of vitamin K will lead to hemorrhagic disease of infants. Vitamin K is prone to be oxidized and relatively stable, however, vitamin K deficiency may be influenced by many factors. Thus, it is necessary to survey the effect of vitamin K stability about the quality of infant formula and the growth of newborns.Firstly, the study tests the GB 5413.10±2010 analytical method and understands the experimental procedure to improve the reliability and the accuracy. In addition, the different effects of light, temperature, oxidant, antioxidant, and saccharide on the stability of vitamin K₁ were researched. The results indicates that the degradation of vitamin K₁ will be accelerated when it exposes to the sunlight and the proportion of remaining is less than 30% after 6 hours exposure. Since the Vitamin K₁ is relatively stable in dark and fluorescent light, the percentage of remaining is more than 75% after 6 hours exposure. In addition, the stability of vitamin K₁ decreases while the applied temperature increases. The remaining vitamin K₁ was 75% at 25 ℃ and 60% at 40 ℃ after 6 hours. With the temperature increases to 60℃, the ratio of the remaining vitamin K₁ is only 25% after 6 hours.Vitamin K₁ shows the perfect stability in the acidic condition and different levels of degradation in the neutral and alkaline condition. Vitamin K₁ has a relatively slow degradation rate in the acidic condition, whereas the faster degradation rate is presented in the alkaline condition. The degradation happenswithin the first 3 hours and it shows no apparent changes when the reaction reaches at a certain level. Hydrogen peroxide has a great influence on vitamin K₁. With the density of hydrogen peroxide increases, the degradation of vitamin K₁ significantly accelerates. When the density figure of hydrogen peroxide is 0.48%, the loss percentage of vitamin K₁ is 80% within 1 hour. Vitamin K₁ can also be influenced by antioxidant too. When the antioxidant density rises, the content of Vitamine K₁ decreases. Glucose and sucrose do not affect the stability of vitamin K₁ significantly, which means that vitamin K₁ is relatively stable on saccharide.Secondly, the study researches the effect of the production process about the stability of Vitamin K₁. The result shows that Vitamin K₁ has good thermal stability, but vitamin K₁ will have a huge loss in the process which needs some high temperature technology. The loss rate of Vitamin K₁ is about 6.63%,2.51%,4.00% respectively in the process of homogenize, spray drying and fluidized-bed drying, while the proportion is 12.72% in the high temperature sterilization process.Finally, the study researches the effect of storage conditions on the stability of vitamin K₁. The result shows that the storage temperature has a relatively small influence on the stability. It also presents that the level of vitamin K₁ in the infant formula which is stored at 15 ℃ after 30 month can meet the international standard.The study researches the stability of vitamins in the infant formula systemically and also looks into the prospect of future research.