Loss mechanism of multi-flavor compounds in microencapsulation process by spray drying

Abstract

Some Thai herbals are volatile and chemically unstable in the presence of air, light, moisture and high temperature. To limit flavor degradation or loss during processing and storage, it is useful to encapsulate volatile compounds prior to its use in foods or beverages. In this research, flavor was encapsulated with carrier solution such as gum arabic or modified starch and transformed to solid by spray drying process. Bergamot oil was used as multi-flavor model. The main compositions of bergamot oil were d-limonene, linalool and linalyl acetate. The purpose of this research is to understand the loss mechanism of multi-flavor compound during microencapsulation process by spray drying. The loss of multi-flavor and single flavor were affected by many factors such as ratio of flavor to solid, emulsion droplet size, powder size, flavor properties, spray drying condition and diffusion coefficient of flavor. The results demonstrated that multi-flavor gave higher retention than single flavor because of the interaction between each flavors. The transformation of sensitive flavors was occurred during the spray drying process. The volatile release of spray dried powder depended on the solubility of flavor, powder size, temperature storage and RH. This implied that flavor release was governed by the interaction of flavor and matrices.