Carotenoid Pigments Encapsulation: Fundamentals, Techniques and Recent Trends

Abstract

Supercritical fluids have become an attractive alternative due to environmentally friendly solvents. The methods that use supercritical fluids can be conveniently used for various applications such as extraction, reactions, particle formation and encapsulation. For encapsulation purposes, the processing conditions given by supercritical technology have important advantages over other methods that include harsh treatments with regard to pH, temperature, light, the use of organic solvents, etc. Unstable functional pigments such as carotenoids extracted from natural sources have been encapsulated to overcome instability problem. Thus, the most used techniques applicable to this intention are described and discussed in this review as well the recent advances and recent trends in this topic that involves the use of supercritical fluids.

Synthesis of enhanced urea–formaldehyde resin microcapsules doped with nanotitania

“…15,16 However, these methods require quite complex processes and cost expensive raw materials. 17 Hence, improving the performance of UF resin microcapsules is still a challenge.…”

Trends in Particle Formation of Bioactive Compounds Using Supercritical Fluids and Nanoemulsions

“…Encapsulation using the SAS technique is based on the same simple principles of the RESS method in which a core material and a carrier are co-precipitated together [2]. This process is well known and has been applied to several types of compounds, including explosives [38], polymers [39], [40], pharmaceuticals [41], [42], and pigments [43].…”

“…These limitations include poor control of particle size and morphology, degradation of thermosensitive compounds and low encapsulation efficiency [2]. The possibility of obtaining solvent-free microparticulate particles with a narrow size distribution curve using supercritical fluids is very attractive [3].…”

Monolayer kinetic model of formation of β-cyclodextrin–β-carotene inclusion complex

“…Carotenoids are also highly hydrophobic and because of their lipophilicity they have poor absorption and limited bioavailability [1]. To improve their stability to oxidation and to preserve their native properties during storage and application, recently some encapsulation techniques have been successfully employed [2]. These methods are essentially based on the inclusion of the carotenoids as well as various drugs into cage molecules by means of appropriate procedures [3][4][5][6][7][8][9].…”