Abstract
Modern microencapsulation techniques are employed to protect active molecules or substances such as vitamins, pigments, antimicrobials, and flavorings, among others, from the environment. Microencapsulation offers advantages such as facilitating handling and control of the release and solubilization of active substances, thus offering a great area for food science and processing development. For instance, the development of functional food products, fat reduction, sensory improvement, preservation, and other areas may involve the use of microcapsules in various food matrices such as meat products, dairy products, cereals, and fruits, as well as in their derivatives, with good results. The versatility of applications arises from the diversity of techniques and materials used in the process of microencapsulation. The objective of this review is to report the state of the art in the application and evaluation of microcapsules in various food matrices, as a one-microcapsule-core system may offer different results according to the medium in which it is used. The inclusion of microcapsules produces functional products that include probiotics and prebiotics, as well as antioxidants, fatty acids, and minerals. Our main finding was that the microencapsulation of polyphenolic extracts, bacteriocins, and other natural antimicrobials from various sources that inhibit microbial growth could be used for food preservation. Finally, in terms of sensory aspects, microcapsules that mimic fat can function as fat replacers, reducing the textural changes in the product as well as ensuring flavor stability.
Highlights
It is important to consider the type of wall-material that will be used in combination with a specific encapsulation process according to the function or destination of the microcapsule and the desired particle size; the wall material leads to variation in encapsulation efficiency and stability [4]
The benefits of microencapsulation are not exclusive to polyphenols and extracts from fruits, peels, or fruit seeds and extend to antimicrobial peptides such as nisin, whose microencapsulation reduces the growth of Listeria monocytogenes by up to 75% with respect to the control and is 50% more effective than nisin without encapsulation when a ham is inoculated with 103 CFU/g of Listeria [27]
The inclusion of bacteria in microcapsules is not used exclusively for the elaboration of functional products, as presented below, and for inhibiting the growth of other microorganisms and as a source of preservatives. Such is the case of the bacteria Bifidobacterium animalis and Lactobacillus acidophilus in cheese, which inhibit the growth of fungi such as Aspergillus niger in feta cheese during 45 days of storage; this effect is enhanced when they are encapsulated in sodium alginate, which increases the final count of viable bacterial cells by approximately 0.1 log CFU during storage [30]
Summary
The use of microparticles is a worldwide trend that is constantly expanding in various areas such as medicine, food, electronics, and environmental remediation, among others, as microparticles can carry and protect several active compounds with broad applications. Scaling parameters (melting, atomizer air temperature and pressure, cooling temperature, feed flow) Rapid release of actives Specific for hydrophobic compounds Nonuniform particles Variable encapsulation efficiency. Modified solvent evaporation (mix solution of core and coat material, sonication at 5 ◦C with 5-s pulse rate for 15 min, spray in chilled alcohol, and later evaporation). Spray dryer conditions: 90 ◦C outlet temperature, 160 ◦C inlet temperature, 2.5 cm3/min feed rate and 0.67 m3/min air flow. For spray chilling: molten hydrogenated palm oil, homogenized, and spray chilled with nozzle fixed at 38 ◦C, compressed air at 0.3 bar, aspiration rate Molecules 2022, 27, x oFfO2R0 PmE3E/Rh REVIEW. They should not be toxic or modify the taste, in addi-
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