Natural bioactive compounds (BCs) are types of chemicals found in plants and certain foods that promote good health, however they are sensitive to processing and environmental conditions. Microencapsulation by spray drying is a widely used and cost-effective approach to create a coating layer to surround and protect BCs and control their release, enabling the production of high functional products/ingredients with extended shelf life. In this process, wall materials determine protection efficiency, and physical properties, bioavailability, and storage stability of microencapsulated products. Therefore, an understanding of physicochemical properties of wall materials is essential for the successful and effective spray-dried microencapsulation process. Typically, polysaccharide-based wall materials are generated from more sustainable sources and have a wider range of physicochemical properties and applications compared to their protein-based counterparts. In this review, we highlight the essential physicochemical properties of polysaccharide-based wall materials for spray-dried microencapsulation of BCs including solubility, thermal stability, and emulsifying properties, rheological and film forming properties. We provide further insight into possibilities for the chemical structure modification of native wall materials and their controlled release behaviors. Finally, we summarize the most recent studies involving polysaccharide biopolymers as wall materials and/or emulsifiers in spray-dried microencapsulation of BCs.
Keywords: Spray-dried microencapsulation; feed solution properties; polysaccharide-based wall materials; structural modification; wall material selection.