Recent Study of the Microencapsulation Process of Bioactive Ingredients in Food Matrices

Dear Colleagues,

Encapsulation is the process by which solids, liquids, or even gases may be enclosed, entrapped, surrounded, or coated with an edible polymeric matrix in order to protect them from the surrounding environmental or to ensure the targeted release. In the last decades, micro or nano encapsulation has been utilized for food applications with a frequency that is secondary only to pharmaceutical uses. Encapsulation in the food industry has increased, since polymeric matrices can be protected from moisture, heat, light, or other extreme conditions, enhancing the food ingredient, enzyme, or even cell stability or viability. Moreover, encapsulation in foods is also useful to mask unwanted odors or tastes. The majority of these characteristics can be obtained by various techniques, including spray drying, spray chilling, extrusion, emulsification, fluidized bed coating, liposome entrapment, phase inversion, coacervation, inclusion complexation, centrifugal extrusion, and molecular inclusion. Starches, dextrins, alginates, protein, and lipid materials can be employed as polymeric matrices, and different methods can be exploited to release the ingredients from the micro-nano capsules. Release of the included product can be site-specific, stage-specific, or signalled by changes in pH, temperature, irradiation, or osmotic shock. The development of a new micro- or nano-encapsulated product must be considered a challenge, and new innovative technologies and more clean and less expensive processes should be considered. Moreover, the application of the encapsulation of food applications is becoming increasingly important for the use of more natural and functional polymeric matrices.

Prof. Fernanda Galgano
Prof. Marisa Carmela Caruso
Guest Editors

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