Advances in the Application of Microcapsules as Carriers of Functional Compounds for Food Products

Abstract

Natural bioactive compounds and living cells have been reported as promising products with beneficial properties to human health. The constant challenge regarding the use of these components is their easy degradation during processing and storage. However, their stability can be improved with the microencapsulation process, in which a compound sensitive to adverse environmental conditions is retained within a protective polymeric material. Microencapsulation is a widely used methodology for the preservation and stabilization of functional compounds for food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic applications. The present review discusses advances in the production and application of microcapsules loaded with functional compounds in food products. The main methods for producing microcapsules, as well as the classes of functional compounds and wall materials used, are presented. Additionally, the release of compounds from loaded microcapsules in food matrices and in simulated gastrointestinal conditions is also assessed.

Effect of different coating materials on freeze‐drying encapsulation of bioactive compounds from fermented tea leaf wastewater

“…Although MD presents stabilizing properties with high solubility in water and is a relatively low‐cost polysaccharide, it is deficient in emulsifying and film‐forming capacities (Gupta et al, ; Krishnan, Kshirsagar, & Singhal, ; Ramírez et al, ). Therefore, the maltodextrin could be mixed with other wall materials such as gum arabic to enhance a stability of emulsion forming (Corrêa‐Filho, Moldão‐Martins, & Alves, ; Costa et al, ; Mahdavi, Jafari, Assadpoor, & Dehnad, ).…”

“…Among these technologies, encapsulation process by freeze‐drying is a process in which the feed solution containing the coating and core materials is frozen at very low temperature (below −40°C) and dried by sublimation under reduced pressure. The freeze‐drying technique is considered a simple and suitable method for the encapsulation of biological compounds sensitive to heat and oxygen due to the application of low temperatures and removal of oxygen during the drying process (Ballesteros et al, ; Barbosa et al, ; Corrêa‐Filho, Moldão‐Martins, & Alves, ; Gadkari & Balaraman, ; Sampanvejsobha et al, ). Additionally, various active biological compounds; for example, phenolic compounds, carotenoids, and probiotic bacteria have been stabilized by the freeze‐drying encapsulation method (Fang & Bhandari, ; Ozkan, Franco, Marco, Xiao, & Capanoglu, ).…”

Natural Polymers in Micro- and Nanoencapsulation for Therapeutic and Diagnostic Applications: Part I: Lipids and Fabrication Techniques

“…This technique involves the phase separation of one or more hydrocolloids from its initial solution brought about by changes such as pH, ionic strength, temperature, solvent type or polarity and the subsequent deposition of the separated coacervate on the core droplets in the solution [77]. The lower particle diameter obtainable from simple coacervation is 20 μm while that for complex coacervation is 1 μm; and 500 μm capsules are also possible from both [33].…”

A review of current and future food applications of natural hydrocolloids

“…The developments in the field suggest that the encapsulation of bioactive phenolics will continue to dominate the research studies related to encapsulation. Moreover, the use of probiotics as core material will also increasingly continue since microencapsulated probiotics show significantly higher gut colonisation than uncoated probiotics (Del Piano et al, 2011;Corrêa-Filho et al, 2019). Currently, microcapsules based on alginates, blends of alginates with milk or whey proteins and chitosan-coated alginates (applied by layer-by-layer strategy) are used successfully to improve viability and colonisation of probiotics at gastric conditions (Shori, 2017).…”