Encapsulation in food industry with emerging electrohydrodynamic techniques: Electrospinning and electrospraying - A review

Abstract

Nowadays the world population has been more conscious about healthy food products based on bioactive ingredients in order to protect against diseases and to develop healthy diets. Emerging electrohydrodynamic techniques have been object of interest in the scientific community as well as in the industry. In fact, electrospinning and electrospraying methods are promising techniques to fabricate delivery vehicles. These vehicles present structural and functional benefits for encapsulation of bioactive ingredients. They can be used in several food and nutraceutical matrices, protecting the ingredients from environmental conditions. They can also enhance biomolecules bioavailability and controlled release, at the same time that improve the product's shelf life. This review provides the recent state of art for electrospinning/electrospraying techniques. It highlights the crucial parameters that influence these techniques. Further, the recent studies of vitamins encapsulation for applications in functional foods and nutraceuticals fields are summarized. Electrosprayed particles/electrospun fibres are easily produced and present suitable physico-chemical characteristics to encapsulate bioactives to improve the functional foods.

Keywords: Electrospinning; Electrospraying; Food additives; Functional food; Microencapsulation; Nutraceuticals.