Anandharamakrishnan C., Padma Ishwarya S. Spray Drying Techniques for Food Ingredient Encapsulation

John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2015. — 312 p.Encapsulation is a boon to the food industry thanks to its potential to transform unstable, but valuable, active compounds into stable and functional food ingredients. It has now been used for more than six decades, and it has offered enormous advantages in the protected delivery of nutritionally significant food components. Encapsulation is a process wherein active compounds are embedded in a homogeneous or heterogeneous matrix, resulting in encapsulates of various size ranges. On a simple level, a “core” and a “wall” are all that makes the capsule, but the encapsulation process is rather more intricate than it appears. Although a number of methods are used for the encapsulation of food ingredients, spray drying has a competitive edge over its counterparts in terms of its technical and economical advantages.
Spray drying has been instrumental in transforming the encapsulation technique into a viable process in the food sector. A series of valuable food compounds, including flavors, vitamins, minerals, specialty oils, fatty acids, enzymes, proteins, carotenoids, polyphenols, colourants, acidulants and microbial cells, have been successfully encapsulated using the spray drying technique.
An underpinning knowledge of the various process parameters of spray drying is essential in achieving good encapsulation efficiency. Choosing the most appropriate wall material and understanding the physicochemical properties of these materials is no less important. And this is only the beginning. Evaluating the efficiency of encapsulation, the stability of the encapsulated compound and, sometimes, controlling the release of the active ingredient at the appropriate delivery site, completes the cycle of a successful encapsulation study.
This book will provide insight into the engineering aspects of the spray drying process in relation to the encapsulation of food ingredients, the choice of wall materials, and an overview of the various food ingredients encapsulated using spray drying. It will also shed light upon recent advancements in the field of encapsulation by spray drying, including nanospray dryers and production of nanocapsules by spray drying. This book is intended to establish that encapsulation by spray drying is more of a science than an art!