Abstract
Oregano essential oil (OEO), due to its wide variety of biological activities, could be a “green” alternative to chemical preservatives. On the other hand, the difficulties in its use or storage have turned researchers’ interest in encapsulation strategies as a way to face stability and handling issues. Fabrication of OEO-loaded particles, using nano spray drying technique (NSD) and whey protein isolate-maltodextrin mixtures (1:1, 1:3) as wall materials appears to be a novel and promising strategy. The obtained particles were characterized in terms of volatile composition, encapsulation efficiency, and physicochemical, molecular, morphological, and antibacterial properties. The results confirmed that encapsulation of OEO using NSD achieved high levels of powder recovery (>77%) and encapsulation efficiency (>98%) while assisting in the retention of the main bioactive compounds. The partial replacement of WPI by MD significantly affected particles’ physical properties. FTIR analyses revealed the possible structural stabilization of core and wall materials, while SEM verified the very fine size and spherical shape. Finally, antibacterial studies demonstrated their activity against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, which is much stronger in comparison with that of pure OEO, proving the positive effect of NSD and particles’ potential in future food applications.
Highlights
Accepted: 22 November 2021During the last decades, people have switched to healthier habits and lifestyles, adopting green consumer behaviors and organic foods
The droplet size distribution was affected by wall material ratio variation as replacement of whey protein isolate (WPI) with MD caused a rise in droplet size
Encapsulation of Oregano essential oil (OEO) in whey protein isolate-maltodextrin system was successfully achieved by nano spray drying, a novel technique that achieves much higher yields than the conventional one
Summary
People have switched to healthier habits and lifestyles, adopting green consumer behaviors and organic foods. Thereby, there is a great demand for natural, health-promoting preservation ingredients that can be used in the food industry in the place of chemical preservatives. Essential oils (EOs) obtained from aromatic plants could serve as such “green” alternatives since they have been generally recognized as safe (ESO, GRAS-182.20). Encapsulation is an alternative strategy, described by Jafari et al (2008) [6] as a “unique way” to package materials in the form of micro- and nano-particles, that has been extensively used for bioactive compounds’ protection, preventing undesirable reactions and achieving controlled release and easier handling [1,4]. OEO encapsulation has been broadly studied with respect to the different techniques, such as spray drying [2,7,8,9,10,11,12,13], ionic gelation [1,14,15], nano-emulsification [16], nanoprecipitation [17], electrospraying [18], Published: 25 November 2021
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