Physicochemical and release properties of retinol‐loaded zein chitosan nanoparticles

Abstract

In this study, one of the hydrophobic vitamins, retinol was successfully encapsulated into zein chitosan nanoparticles. EF‐TEM study revealed the spherical shape with smooth surface of nanoparticles. The particle size of retinol‐loaded zein nanoparticles without chitosan coating was around 6 nm; however, particle size increased to around 400 nm after coating with chitosan. The encapsulation efficiencies slightly increased from 66.2% to 72.8% as zein concentration increased. The kinetic release profile of retinol from nanoparticles can be described as a two‐step biphasic process, i.e., an initial burst effect followed by subsequent slower release. These results show that processing parameters, such as concentration of zein and chitosan, molecular weight of chitosan, and zein/chitosan weight ratios, and so on, could be important factors to affect the properties of zein‐chitosan nanoparticles.