Spray Drying Encapsulation of Essential Oils

Abstract

Essential oils (EOs) that are obtained from plants include a mixture of substances that are usually labile under various environmental conditions, including heat, light, and pH. Micro- and nanoencapsulation by spray drying are techniques that can easily protect EOs against such conditions, preventing the deterioration of EOs and maintaining their desirable features such as bioactivity, flavor, and stability. Those features allow the applications of these bioactives in several fields such as pharmacy, food, and cosmetics. This chapter discusses the paramount parameters for process optimization of spray drying encapsulation of EOs; wall materials, their components and composition, loading, encapsulation efficiency, yield, particle size distribution, ζ-potential, morphology, oil release profile, and thermal properties. Based on the data available in the literature to date, wall material choice was determined to achieve high yield, loading, and encapsulating efficiency. Gum Arabic was the most commonly employed matrix component (wall material) for the spray drying encapsulation of EOs that resulted in the protection of their biological activities/functionality.