Use of Electrosprayed Agave Fructans as Nanoencapsulating Hydrocolloids for Bioactives

Abstract

High degree of polymerization Agave fructans (HDPAF) are presented as a novel encapsulating material. Electrospraying coating (EC) was selected as the encapsulation technique and β-carotene as the model bioactive compound. For direct electrospraying, two encapsulation methodologies (solution and emulsion) were proposed to find the formulation which provided a suitable particle morphology and an adequate concentration of β-carotene encapsulated in the particles to provide a protective effect of β-carotene by the nanocapsules. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images showed spherical particles with sizes ranging from 440 nm to 880 nm depending on the concentration of HDPAF and processing parameters. FTIR analysis confirmed the interaction and encapsulation of β-carotene with HDPAF. The thermal stability of β-carotene encapsulated in HDPAF was evidenced by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The study showed that β-carotene encapsulated in HDPAF by the EC method remained stable for up to 50 h of exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light. Therefore, HDPAF is a viable option to formulate nanocapsules as a new encapsulating material. In addition, EC allowed for increases in the ratio of β-carotene:polymer, as well as its photostability.

Micro- and Nanostructures of Agave Fructans to Stabilize Compounds of High Biological Value via Electrohydrodynamic Processing

“…The solutions presented viscosity values of 3.69 ± 0.05 and 3.36 ± 0.03 Pa•s without and with β-carotene, respectively, as shown is Table 1. These results are in the same order of magnitude as those obtained by Kutzli [18] analyzed the surface tension of HDPAF solutions at different concentrations, obtaining a value of 23.46 mN/m for a 50% solution of the polymer, which differs from those obtained in this study. The difference could be associated with the type of surfactant used, but mainly at the concentration of the biopolymer (70%).…”

“…Despite not finding references in literature about fiber formation with HDPAF, some authors such as Lee et al (2009) [25]; Kai et al (2015) [26] reported the use of polysaccharides such as alginate, cellulose, chitosan, starch in the formation of fibers by electrospinning, which could be used as natural encapsulants in the area of medicine. HDPAFs have just been used so far for the production of spherical nanocapsules ( [18]), which were obtained using a HDPAF concentration of 30% through the electrospraying process to encapsulate β-carotene. The possibility of obtaining fibers could increase the application field of agave fructans to medicine or biomaterials.…”

“…The difference between electrospinning and electrospraying (electrohydrodynamic spraying) is based on the degree of molecular cohesion, which can be easily controlled by variation in the concentration of the polymer solution [17]. Ramos-Hernández et al (2018) [18] managed to obtain spherical structures with a size distribution of 440 to 880 nm, as well as the thermostability and photostability of β-carotene encapsulated by electrospraying, using solutions with concentrations from 10% to 50% of HDPAF.…”

Encapsulation of β-Carotene by Emulsion Electrospraying Using Deep Eutectic Solvents

“…At the same time, we checked that the efficiency of the encapsulation process was 100%, since all β-carotene in the solution was found trapped in the capsules. β-carotene is a highly light-sensitive molecule due to the double bonds in the molecule [35] and its photoisomerization is often considered as being able to occur in solution, hexane in this case, but not very readily in dry particles [53]. As observed in the figure, the β-carotene loaded WPC capsules showed very good photo-oxidation stability.…”

“…The objective of this study is to evaluate the possibility of increasing the stability and loading capacity of β-carotene in WPC capsules, by using DES as solvents and emulsion electrospraying as the encapsulation technique. β-carotene is a very well-known model bioactive compound with low solubility, and many works have been published before in the group dealing with the stabilization of β-carotene [30,[34][35][36]. In this study, we investigated the possibility of generating emulsions with these solvents, using an aqueous solution of WPC as a continuous phase, and DES with or without bioactive, as the dispersed phase.…”