Micro & Nano Encapsulation of food ingredients

Encapsulation may be defined as a process to entrap one substance (active agent)

within another substance (wall material). The encapsulated substance, active agent, can be
called the core, fill, active, internal or payload phase. The substance that is encapsulating is
often called the coating, membrane, shell, capsule, carrier material, external phase, or matrix.
In scientific literature, the term of encapsulation can be easily confused with the
immobilization one or encapsulation is sometimes considered as being a technique of
immobilization. Some researchers distinguish between the two processes. The most important
difference is the relationship between the core material and wall material. By encapsulation
the active components are embedded and entirely covered by the encapsulating material,
while considering the immobilization, the active components are adsorbed to the material
surface, so that there is always the risk that they drain the system.
1. Co-crystallization:
Cocrystallization is a new encapsulation process utilizing sucrose as a matrix for the
incorporation of core materials. The sucrose syrup is concentrated to the supersaturated state
and maintained at a temperature high enough to prevent crystallization. A predetermined
amount of core material is then added to the concentrated syrup with vigorous mechanical
agitation, thus providing nucleation for the sucrose ingredient mixture to crystallize. As the
syrup reaches the temperature at which transformation and crystallization begin, a substantial
amount of heat is emitted. Agitation is continued in order to promote and extend
transformation crystallization until the agglomerates are discharged from the vessel. The
encapsulated products are then dried to the desired moisture (if necessary) and screened to a
uniform size. It is very important to properly control the rates of nucleation and
crystallization as well as the thermal balance during the various phases.
The advantages of this technique include: (1) It can be employed to achieve particle
drying. By means of this process, core materials in a liquid form can be converted to a dry
powdered form without additional drying. (2) Products offer direct tableting characteristics
because of their agglomerated structure and thus offer significant advantages to the candy and
pharmaceutical industries.
2. Fluidised bed coating:
Originally developed as a pharmaceutical technique, fluidized-bed coating is now
increasingly being applied in the food industry to fine-tune the effect of functional
ingredients and additives. Fluidized-bed coating increasingly supplies the food industry with
a wide variety of encapsulated versions of food ingredients and additives. Compared to
pharmaceutical fluidized-bed coating, food industry fluidized-bed coating is more obliged to
cut production costs and, therefore, should adopt a somewhat different approach to this rather
expensive technology. Solid particles are suspended in a temperature and humidity-controlled
chamber of high velocity air where the coating material is atomized.
Fluidized-bed encapsulation can be used to isolate iron from ascorbic acid in multivitamins
and in small tablets such as childrens vitamins. Many fortified foods, nutritional mixes, and
dry mixes, contain fluidized-bedencapsulated ingredients.
Fluidized-bed coating was first developed by D.E. Wurster in the 1950s; hence, the term
Wurster process. Today, the fluidized-bed coating method is being modified by changing
the position of the nozzle to be used for coating the solid particles. The different fluidized-
bed coating methods are: (1) top-spray, (2) bottom-spray, and (3) tangential spray.
In conventional top-spray method, the air is passed through a bed of core particles to
suspend them in air and coating solution is sprayed countercurrently onto the randomly
fluidized particles. The coated particles travel through the coating zone into the expansion
chamber, and then they fall back into the product container and continue cycling throughout
the process. The top-spray system has successfully been used to coat materials as small as
100 mm.
The bottom-spray method known as the Wurster system, is widely used for coating
particles as small as 100 mm. In this method, the particles are recycled through the coating
zone at a faster rate and the fluidization pattern is much more controlled than the top-spray
method. The typical advantage of this method is that, the path of the droplets concurrently
toward the core particles is extremely short,
 In conventional fluidized-bed coating, whether it is top-spray, Wurster, or rotational, the
basic concept of fluidization relies on the compensation of the gravitational force experienced
by the particles by an upward moving air flow, which ensures complete fluidization of the
particles. Typical fluidized-bed apparatus can efficiently process particles from 100 mm to a
few millimeters. However, for very small particles, other forces, such as electrostatic forces,
start to play a major role in the movement of the particles in the fluidization chamber and
prevent adequate fluidization. Colloidal particles have been used with some success to reduce
electrostatic force, but are not much help in the fluidization of very small (submicron)
particles in a conventional fluidized-bed apparatus. So, in this innovative process, the air flow
is applied tangentially to the rotation of the drum as compensation for the gravitational force,
now a multiple (up to 37 g) of the normal gravitational force.
The conventional top-spray method remains unique and widely used technique in food
industry. This is due to its high versatility, relatively high batch size, and relative simplicity.

3. COACERVATION / PHASE SEPARATION:

Coacervation is a unique and promising microencapsulation technology because of the
very high payloads achievable (up to 99%) and the controlled release possibilities based on
mechanical stress, temperature or sustained release. Coacervation is typically used to
encapsulate flavor oils but can also be adapted for the encapsulation of fish oils, nutrients,
vitamins, preservatives, enzymes.
The concept behind (simple or complex) coacervation microencapsulation is the phase
separation of one or many hydrocolloids from the initial solution and the subsenquent
deposition of the newly formed coacervate phase around the active ingredient suspended or
emulsified in the same reaction media. The hydrocolloid shell can then be crosslinked using
an appropriate chemical or enzymatic crosslinker, if needed. Therefore, the batch-type
coacervation processes consist of three steps and are carried out under continuous agitation.
1. Formation of a three-immiscible chemical phase
2. Deposition of the coating
3. Solidification of the coating
Despite coacervations intrinsic advantage and unique properties compared to the other
common encapsulation processes, major problems face the food scientists when it comes to
commercializing a coacervated food ingredient. First of all, the cost of the process is very
expensive and rather complex and secondly crosslinking of the shell material usually involves
glutaraldehyde, which must be carefully used according to the countrys legislation.
However, the processing cost can be dramatically decreased by optimizing the isolation
procedure at the end of the encapsulation step. It is believed that the usual
isolation/dehydration procedure, typically performed by filtration followed by fluidized bed
drying (or performed by freeze drying) is responsible for the steep processing cost of
coacervation encapsulation. Other methods, cheaper and more straightforward, can be used,
such as spray drying for instance. The problems related to harmful chemical crosslinkers
could eventually be solved by using enzymatic crosslinkers.

4. Extrusion:
 Encapsulation of food ingredients by extrusion is a relatively new process compared to
spray-drying. Extrusion used in this context is not same as extrusion used for cooking and
texturizing of cereal-based products. Actually, extrusion, as applied to flavor encapsulation,
is a relatively low temperature entrapping method, which involves forcing a emulsion or
dispersion of core & wall material through a series of dies into a cold solvent bath. The
pressure and temperature employed are typically <100 psi and seldom 115_C. The cold
solvent solidifies and forms an encapsulating matrix to entrap the core material. Then the
extruded filaments are separated from the solvent bath, dried, and sized.

The main advantage of this process is the very long shelf life imparted to normally
oxidation-prone flavor compounds, such as citrus oils, because atmosphere gases diffuse very
slowly through the hydrophilic glassy matrix, thus providing an almost impermeable barrier
against oxygen. Shelf lives of up to 5 years have been reported for extruded flavor oils,
compared to typically 1 year for spray dried flavors and a few months for unencapsulated
citrus oils. The payload in these systems, however, remained very low (around 8%); higher
payloads led to unstable systems, leaking out and fast oxidation of the sensitive flavor oil.
Such low payloads in flavor microcapsules are very unattractive, from an industrial point of
view, because (1) the cost-in-use becomes unacceptable and (2) the substantial amount of
carbohydrate added to the food stuff along with the flavor often requires an undesirable
adjustment of the recipe, and might not be appropriate for sugar-free or savory products.

One of the drawbacks of this technology is the rather large particles formed by extrusion
(typically 5001000 mm), which limit the use of extruded flavors in application where
mouthfeel is a crucial factor. Also, a very limited range of shell material is available for
extrusion encapsulation.
5. Supercritical fluid drying:
Supercritical fluids exist above the critical point and exhibit properties intermediate
between those of liquids and gases: low viscosity, low density, high solvating power, high
diffusivities and high mass transfer rates. A number of compounds can be brought to a
supercritical state, such as carbon dioxide, water, propane, nitrogen, etc. However, keeping in
mind the particular considerations in the food industry, carbon dioxide is probably the most
interesting candidate for use in microencapsulation processes, because it is the second most
abundant and the second least expensive solvent on earth. Supercritical fluids have recently
been used for encapsulation of heat-sensitive material in a process very similar to spray
drying. The core material and microencapsulating material are dispersed and/or dissolved in a
SCF, such as carbon di oxide. When the SCF is sprayed from a nozzle the carbon dioxide
flashes off very rapidly, leaving residual particulate material. Basically, the same equipment
(nozzle, spray tower) and similar concepts are used, but SC fluids are used for the
solubilization/ swelling of the shell material and the core material instead of water as in spray
drying.
The main advantage here is the absence of water and the very mild process (T<30_C
throughout the process). Encapsulation of sensitive materials (enzymes, very volatile flavors,
sensitive ingredients) could benefit from SC fluid-based spray drying.
Various microencapsulation processes have been developed according to the role of
the SCF in the process:
solvent (rapid expansion of supercritical solutions [RESS]),
supercritical solvent impregnation,
solute (particles from gas-saturated solutions),
antisolvent (supercritical antisolvent [SAS] and SCF extraction of emulsions)
 Compound nebulisation.
Rapid Expansion of Supercritical Solutions (RESS) microencapsulation takes place
when a pressurized supercritical solvent containing the shell material and the active
ingredient is released through a small orifice; the abrupt pressure drop causes the desolvation
of the shell material and the formation of a coating layer around the active ingredient.
Nanoencapsulation

The term Nanotechnology was coined by Nario Taniguchi in 1974. Nanoencapsulation is

defined as a technology to encapsulate substances in miniature and refers to bioactive
packing at the nanoscale range. Nanoparticles are colloidal-sized particles with diameters
ranging from 10 to 1,000 nm and are expressed both as nano capsules and nanospheres. The
techniques have been developed for the production of nanocapsules was same as of
microencapsulation, only the particle size is reduced to nano-scale.
Techniques for achieving nanoencapsulation are more complex than those used for
microencapsulation chiefly due to the fact that it is, in general, more difficult to attain a good
nanoencapsulation process given the complex morphology of the capsule and core material
and the demands of releasing rates.