Microfluidic Assembly: An Innovative Tool for the Encapsulation, Protection, and Controlled Release of Nutraceuticals

Abstract

Nutraceuticals have been gradually accepted as food ingredients that can offer health benefits and provide protection against several diseases. It is widely accepted due to potential nutritional benefits, safety, and therapeutic effects. Most nutraceuticals are vulnerable to the changes in the external environment, which leads to poor physical and chemical stability and absorption. Several researchers have designed various encapsulation technologies to promote the use of nutraceuticals. Microfluidic technology is an emerging approach which can be used for nutraceutical delivery with precise control. The delivery systems using microfluidic technology have obtained much interest in recent years. In this review article, we have summarized the recently introduced nutraceutical delivery platforms including emulsions, liposomes, microspheres, microgels, and polymer nanoparticles based on microfluidic techniques. Emphasis has been made to discuss the advantages, preparations, characterizations, and applications of nutraceutical delivery systems. Finally, the challenges, several up-scaling methods, and future expectations are discussed.

Influence of the block copolypeptide surfactant structure on the size of polypeptide nanoparticles obtained by mini emulsion polymerisation

“…S1 †). All signals for 1 H NMR were in good agreement with the block copolypeptide structures (Fig. 2 and Fig.…”

“…No precipitation was observed during any of these steps or after dialysis signifying high stability of the core forming homopolypeptide within the core of the nanoparticles. Spectroscopically the presence of the core homopolypeptide and the surfactant in the nanoparticles after dialysis was confirmed by comparative 1 H NMR spectra which were recorded in d-TFA as a common solvent for surfactant and core polypeptide. Fig.…”

“…Degradable nanoparticles find applications in many fields such as nutraceutics, 1 agriculture, 2 and medicine. 3 Typically degradable nanoparticles are composed of polyesters, polyamides, polysaccharides or polypeptides, whose beneficial factor is that they degrade to non-toxic, low molecular weight products which are typically easily eliminated.…”

One-Step Microfluidic Fabrication of Multi-Responsive Liposomes for Targeted Delivery of Doxorubicin Synergism with Photothermal Effect

“…In the preparation of liposomes, microfluidic technology can replace the lipid hydration and extrusion steps with a single-step production process in which particle size is process-controlled. [59][60][61] Further, the encapsulation and loading efficiency of DOX in liposomes can be adjusted by changing the concentration of drug and encapsulated nanoparticles. The encapsulation efficiency decreased with the increasing concentration of drug and encapsulated nanoparticles, while the loading efficiency was positively correlated with the drug concentration.…”

Precise Fabrication of Porous Microspheres by Iso-Density Emulsion Combined with Microfluidics

“…With high specific surface area and good fluidity, polymer porous microspheres have played an important role in a wide range of biomedical applications, such as controllable drug delivery, adsorbent, cell delivery, and enzyme immobilization [1][2][3][4][5][6]. The employment of microfluidics has facilitated the development of various solid microspheres and particles due to the enhanced precision and controllability [7][8][9][10][11]. However, precise fabrication of porous microspheres is still a challenge since the rapid phase separation damages the emulsion template and further impairs the uniformity of the microspheres in particle size and pore structure [12], which limits the yield and application of porous microspheres.…”