Ultrasound-assisted emulsion electrosprayed particles for the stabilization of β-carotene and its nutritional supplement potential

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodhyd.2019.105634Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Electrosprayed pullulan-whey protein isolate particles loaded β-carotene were obtained.

  • Ultrasonic treatment reduced surface β-carotene and increased encapsulation efficiency.

  • Electrospraying systems can be effective in protecting β-carotene during baking processing.

Abstract

The development of carotenoid-enriched functional foods is limited by the low stability of these bioactive compounds. The main objective of this study was to improve the stability of β-carotene through its encapsulation within emulsion-electrosprayed particles. Further, the particles with higher encapsulation efficiency was incorporated in meal replacement bar and investigated for their impact on bar quality and β-carotene content after bar baking. Ultrasonic power had a significant effect on the properties of emulsion, which are important to the properties of the particles. Moreover, the morphology of solidification product is related to the applied voltage connected to the spinneret and collector. The highest encapsulation efficiency, up to 39 ± 4%, was exhibited in the electrosprayed particles obtained from the emulsions prepared using a power of 360 W. β-Carotene and encapsulates incorporated bar retained their sensory characteristics and almost similar to control. Moreover, the encapsulation structures increased the stability of β-carotene after incorporated meal replacement bar.

Introduction

Among carotenoids, β-carotene is one of the most extensively studied because of its health-related benefits, including anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities (Liang, Shoemaker, Yang, Zhong, & Huang, 2013). The positive effects of β-carotene can highly benefit the food industry by improving the nutritional values of food formulations. The supplementation of food products with β-carotene is gaining a lot of interest and β-carotene is among the most promising bioactive compounds. As a kind of food that can provide low energy and fullness, meal replacement bar is very popular among young people. As a convenient snack, it is considered to be ideal foods for adding functional ingredients (Miraballes, Fiszman, Gámbaro, & Varela, 2014). However, the high temperatures process during baking threatened the stability of functional ingredients (Alyssa, Andrea, & Carlo, 2010). Encapsulation of β-carotene is the preferred way to solve such problems. There are various approaches such as emulsification and spray-drying have been developed to encapsulate β-carotene (Gutierrez et al., 2013). However, these techniques involved high temperatures, which may have a negative impact on β-carotene (Bhushani & Anandharamakrishnan, 2014).

Emulsion electrospraying is emerging as a promising technology for the microencapsulation of labile bioactive compounds, as it allows processing at room temperature (Bock, Dargaville, & Woodruff, 2012). The properties of feed emulsion such as viscocity, droplet size and emulsion stability have significant effect on electrosprayed product (Niu, Shao, Luo, & Sun, 2020). Generally, high speed agitators and high pressure homogenizers are preferred for the preparation of emulsions but these techniques consume high energy and have less control over the particle size distribution and stability of emulsions. On the other side, Ultrasound method is found to be an efficient technique for the preparation of emulsions that has better control over the characteristics of emulsions (Carpenter & Saharan, 2017). Many studies proved the capability of ultrasound for producing the emulsion of droplet sizes below 100 nm. The emulsion having lower droplet size possesses long term stability. Therefore ultrasound can effectively control the particle size distribution as well as improve stability of the emulsions(Gogate & Kabadi, 2009).

Whey protein isolate (WPI) is a mixture of globular proteins isolated from milk whey. It is widely used as an emulsifier in the food industry and electrospraying using WPI as matrix had previously shown to increase the encapsulation efficiency of the bioactive agents (Pérez-Masiá et al., 2015). Pullulan is a nonionic, water-soluble exopolysaccharide produced intracellularly and produced in the form of an amorphous slime by the yeast-like polymorphic fungus Aureobasidium pullulans. Pullulan shows high adhesion and excellent fiber and film forming ability and has great potential as a food ingredient, changing the rheological profile of a food, as it serves as thickening, stabilizing or gelling agent (Ferreira et al., 2015). Moreover, pullulan has been widely used in electrospraying due to their appropriate properties (Shao, Niu, Chen, & Sun, 2018).

Therefore, in this study, β-carotene was encapsulated within pullulan-whey protein isolate (WPI) particles by emulsion-electrospraying, aiming to incorporate in meal replacement bar as a nutritional supplement. First, the effect of ultrasonic power on the properties and stability of emulsion were studied. And the influence of emulsion properties and electrosprayed applied voltage were also assessed. Second, various physicochemical characterizations such as morphology, chemical structure, encapsulation efficiency and stability of particles obtained by different emulsions have also been studied. Finally, the protection exerted by the encapsulation matrices on the β-carotene during the preparation of meal replacement bar was evaluated by comparing the loss of this compound and their antioxidant activity in comparison with the direct addition of the non-encapsulated β-carotene to the bar dough. A sensorial analysis was also conducted to assess whether the incorporation of the β-carotene and/or the particles to the bar formulation had an impact on the consumers’ acceptability.

Section snippets

Materials

Pullulan with an average molecular weight of 200,000 Da was purchased from Hayashibara Biochemical Inc. (Shanghai, China). Dimethylformamide (DMF), β-carotene and hexane was purchased from Aladdin Chemistry Co., Ltd. (Shanghai, China). Whey protein isolate (WPI) (90% protein content) was bought from Mullins Whey Co., Ltd. (Beijing, China) and Medium chain triglycerides (MCT) was purchased from Yuanye Bio-Technology Co., Ltd. (Shanghai, China). 2,2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical was

Emulsion properties

The successful of emulsion electrospraying is closely related to the emulsion properties such as viscosity, conductivity and stability. Therefore, it is necessary to characterize the properties of emulsion before electrospraying (Paximada, Echegoyen, Koutinas, Mandala, & Lagaron, 2017).

Conclusions

β-Carotene was encapsulated into pullulan-WPI particles by emulsion-electrospraying. β-Carotene emulsions were obtained by ultrasound-assisted emulsification technology with different ultrasonic powers. The viscosity of the emulsion treated by ultrasonic treatment decreased. This may be due to the degradation of pullulan. The total β-carotene contents, surface β-carotene contents, and the encapsulation efficiencies had significant differences among the emulsions produced by different ultrasonic

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Ben Niu: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Ping Shao: Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing, Visualization, Investigation. Peilong Sun: Visualization, Investigation, Supervision, Software, Validation.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Zhejiang province key research and development program (No.2019C02070, No.2018C02012, No.2018C02005), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31571833, No.31671813), Science and Technology Project of Hangzhou (2019010A15). We confirm that there is no conflict of interest.

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