The production of encapsulated holy basil oil powder via different scales of spray drying process.

Abstract

The spray drying process is widely utilized in food manufacturing and pharmaceuticals for products like seasoning powder, milk powder, and medicine. This research investigates the scale-up of the spray drying process from laboratory to commercial scale with maintaining the product characteristic. A key aspect of the study is the encapsulation technique applied to prolong the release of essential oils from holy basil, encapsulating the essential substances (liquid, suspension, or emulsion) in nanoparticle form with hot air flow. The study utilizes the Aspen program, incorporating mass and energy balance calculations for simulation. The results, assuming similar particle size, water evaporation per solid content in feed, and outlet temperature in both laboratory and commercial spray drying scales, demonstrate a similarity in product characteristics across both scales Furthermore, A key finding is that increasing the input flow rate and reactor size results in similar outcomes at both scales, in terms of humidity of essential particles, the quantity of essential particles remaining in dried particles, and essential particle size. This successful scale-up process not only preserves the quality and characteristics of the encapsulated products but also opens avenues for industrial applications in maintaining the integrity of essential oils in various products.