Formulation and stability of emulsions for encapsulation of biocomposites

Abstract

The encapsulation of bioactive compounds is of growing interest in the food industry, in order to develop functional foods, particularly probiotics, vitamins, fatty acids, etc, as well as in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries, for the controlled delivery of drugs, such as antioxidants. Several encapsulation techniques have been developed that allow to protect the active principle from degradation, to control its release over time and / or to mask the odor or taste of the bioactive ingredient. In this work, a review of encapsulation using different types of emulsions is reported. Emulsions have been successfully used to encapsulate bioactive compounds, their preparation and characterization is described, and some examples of their main applications are presented.