This paper briefly introduces the preparation and application of flavour and essential oils microcapsules based on complex coacervation technology. The conventional encapsulating agents of oppositely charged proteins and polysaccharides that are used for microencapsulation of flavours and essential oils are reviewed along with the recent advances in complex coacervation methods. Proteins extracted from animal-derived products (gelatin, whey proteins, silk fibroin) and from vegetables (soy proteins, pea proteins), and polysaccharides such as gum Arabic, pectin, chitosan, agar, alginate, carrageenan and sodium carboxymethyl cellulose are described in depth. In recent decades, flavour and essential oils microcapsules have found numerous potential practical applications in food, textiles, agriculturals and pharmaceuticals. In this paper, the different coating materials and their application are discussed in detail. Consequently, the information obtained allows criteria to be established for selecting a method for the preparation of microcapsules according to their advantages, limitations and behaviours as carriers of flavours and essential oils.

The aim of this work was to encapsulate lavender oil by complex coacervation using gelatin and gum Arabic as encapsulants. The effects of various factors including pH value, the core/wall ratio, wall material concentration, stirring speed, cross‐linkers and homogenization rate on the appearance, mean particle size, yield, loading capacity (LC) and encapsulation efficiency (EE) were investigated. The optimal conditions (pH 3.5, core/wall 3:2, wall material concentration 1%, stirring speed 450 rpm, homogenization rate 19 000 rpm and glutaraldehyde as cross‐linker) for preparing spherical multinuclear microcapsules were obtained. At the optimal conditions, the highest yield is 65.8 ± 1.0%; the maximum LC is 61.3 ± 0.7%; the highest EE is 66.0 ± 0.3%. The effect of three different cross‐linkers on the hardening effectiveness of multinuclear microcapsules containing lavender oil was investigated. Glutaraldehyde and transglutaminase exhibit similar microcapsule hardening effectiveness. When tannic acid was used instead of glutaraldehyde and transglutaminase, the mean particle size and EE remained the same as that when hardening with glutaraldehyde or transglutaminase, but the morphology obviously changes, while the yield and LC significantly decrease. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.