Interplaying Effects of Wall and Core Materials on the Property and Functionality of Microparticles for Co-Encapsulation of Vitamin E with Coenzyme Q10

Abstract

The crucial components governing individual powder property and functionality of microparticles were systematically investigated for the co-encapsulation of vitamin E (VE) with coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10). Whey protein isolate (WPI), WPI/soluble corn fiber (SCF), and WPI/maltodextrin were used as wall materials, to encapsulate composite VE/CoQ10, sole VE, and sole CoQ10. Nine types of microparticles were produced by a monodisperse-droplet spray dryer, to explicitly correlate each quality attribute to microparticle composition. All microparticles showed a high retention of core material (89.6–97.4%) and antioxidant activity, with distinctly different particle morphology, powder property, digestibility, and stability. The composition of wall material governed the majority of powder properties, whereas the bioactive core material affected storage stability, and impacted on particle morphology and powder color despite a low loading at 7% of total solids. The wall material that gave excellent powder properties did not always exhibit good functionality. WPI/SCF emulsion showed low viscosities of 7.51–11.71 cP, and the spray-dried microparticles showed spherical shape with excellent flowability (Carr’s index of 17.38%) and wettability (24 s); however, their stability during in vitro gastric digestion and storage trial was poor. The WPI/maltodextrin microparticles with distorted particle shape possibly experienced different particle formation processes from WPI/SCF, with improved stability on color, encapsulation efficiency, and antioxidant activity during storage for 35 days. The retention of VE and CoQ10 after digestion for 60 min was 79% and 82%, respectively. The reported relationships between individual component and the property and functionality of microparticles would be useful for fabricating bioactive microparticles with precisely controlled quality.