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FOAMSCAN™ Advanced Characterization of Beer Foam Stability and Microstructure
FOAMSCAN™ can provide a more comprehensive characterization of beer foam than conventional EBC foam stability tests by simultaneously measuring foam volume, liquid drainage, and bubble microstructure.
Three commercial beers—a standard lager, its alcohol-free version, and an abbey-style blond beer—were analyzed to compare their foam performance. FOAMSCAN™ revealed that foam stability depends not only on drainage but also on bubble coalescence and microstructural evolution. The Abbey-style blond beer maintained a stable bubble network despite liquid drainage, whereas the alcohol-free beer experienced rapid drainage, faster bubble growth, and extensive coalescence, leading to premature foam collapse. Bubble count, bubble size (D32), and polydispersity index (PDI) provided direct insight into the physical mechanisms governing foam ageing, information that cannot be obtained from foam lifetime measurements alone.
Overall, FOAMSCAN™ complements standardized EBC methods by explaining why beers with similar apparent foam stability behave differently, making it a valuable tool for formulation development, ingredient selection, process optimization, and troubleshooting foam-related quality issues.
Sebum Reveals Hidden Differences in Foam Performance: Insights from FOAMSCAN™
Conventional foamability tests are often unable to distinguish between soap formulations with similar foaming performance. Two liquid soaps were analyzed using the FOAMSCAN, both with and without 0.1% artificial sebum.
Without sebum, both products exhibited nearly identical foam volume, gas capture efficiency, and bubble size distribution.
However, the addition of sebum revealed major performance differences. Soap A maintained a high gas capture efficiency (94%) and stable foam, whereas Soap B showed a dramatic reduction in foamability (21%) and much faster foam collapse. Bubble image analysis confirmed that sebum caused Soap B to develop larger, more heterogeneous bubbles that rapidly destabilized, while Soap A preserved a more homogeneous and stable foam structure.
These results demonstrate that adding artificial sebum provides a more discriminating and application-relevant test, revealing formulation differences that remain hidden under standard laboratory conditions and better reflecting real consumer use.
How to measure Antifoaming Agents’ Effectiveness with FOAMSCAN™
Although liquid foams are thermodynamically unstable, under practical conditions they can remain stable for long periods, often creating significant challenges across various industries. To achieve low foamability or low foam stability, specific additives are used to either prevent or destroy foam formation.
FOAMSCAN™ can accurately quantify the effectiveness of antifoaming agents through controlled foam generation and decay analysis. A Defoamer X was tested at four concentrations (25–500 ppm) in two surfactant systems. Foams were produced by gas sparging, and the time to reach a target foam volume measured foamability, while foam half-life indicated stability... in this study, FOAMSCAN™ provided a reliable, quantitative, and automated method to evaluate both foamability and foam stability, making it an ideal tool for screening and optimizing antifoaming additives in surfactant-based formulations.
Characterizing foams produced by an external device
Hands disinfection particularly arose over the covid19 sanitary crisis. Because they are convenient in use and cost-effective, foam dispensers are commonly used to deliver hands- disinfectant in the form of foam.
For hands- disinfectant manufacturers, it is of the utmost importance to control the volume of foam delivered by the dispenser and the properties of the foam, such as stability or texture, when it is mashed in the hands.
The foam analyzer FOAMSCAN™ enables to characterize the foam properties of foams, generated by dispensers, by measuring 2 key parameters: liquid fraction and foam structure (size and distribution of the bubbles)...
The influence of experiment settings on foaming capacity
This note illustrates how experimental settings directly impact the foaming properties of liquids analyzed with the FOAMSCAN™.
Foams were produced either by gas sparging or by mechanical stirring.
For gas sparging, the gas flow rate and glass frit porosity were found to strongly affect foaming time and foam wetness, while the initial liquid volume had little influence. Smaller frit pores produced slower but wetter foams.
For mechanically stirred foams, both stirring speed and liquid volume were critical: low speed led to slow foaming, while too high speed consumed all liquid.
The study demonstrates that foam generation settings must be carefully selected to ensure reproducible and meaningful results.
Dispersity: an indicator to classify the foam dissipation
Foam struture analysis can distinguish foam dissipation mechanisms.
FOAMSCAN™ was used to generate Two foams, A and B, under identical conditions and analyzed over 1800 seconds.
The dispersity (D), defined as the ratio of bubble-size standard deviation to mean radius, was tracked over time.
Foam A maintained a constant dispersity, indicating coarsening (Ostwald ripening) as the main aging mechanism.
Foam B showed an increasing dispersity, typical of coalescence-driven foam decay.
These results show that dispersity is a powerful indicator to classify foams according to their dissipation mechanisms.