Due to growing concerns regarding health, safety and the environment, non-conventional methods for particle formation and micronization that are either solvent-less or use environmentally acceptable solvents such as carbon dioxide have come into favor. Supercritical CO (sc CO ) (T>31.1°C, P>7.3MPa) has been used in food and pharmaceutical industries to minimize the use of organic solvents, produce new food products, produce environmentally superior food products and to process and micronize (0.1-5μm) pharmaceuticals. Control of particle size increases the dissolution rate of drugs into the body. Techniques that use sc CO eliminate inherent drawbacks of conventional methods such as thermal or mechanical degradation of the product, poor control of the particle size and morphology, lack of brittleness of some polymers and low encapsulation efficiency. Several techniques have been reported for the particle formation and micronization using supercritical fluids that have been successfully scaled up for commercial use. Supercritical CO has also been used to develop applications for medicines, essential oils, vitamins, food grade polymers, catalysts and pigments. This review highlights the process mechanism of supercritical fluid based techniques as well as some applications on particle formation and micronization.

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Data examines the effect of hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) HPMC15 cP, and HPMC 5 cP polymer composition on the physicochemical traits of encapsulated oil made using lab scale spray drying (180 °C). The data found showed that the properties of the reconstituted fish oil powder are significantly affected by the polymer's composition and ratio ( p < 0.05). In this experiment, powder with the particle sizes below 60 μm was produced and it was observed that HPMC is a good emulsifier for all formulations and the encapsulation efficiency is high with 75.21% for AF1 formulation. It was also observed that the process of fish oil encapsulation employed by HPMC 5 cP produce a more volatile oil powder, while encapsulation with HPMC 15 cP produced a more stable fish oil powder. These finding shows that the utilisation of HPMC as a polymer to encapsulate fish oil can produce a more efficient and stable compound.

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