Calcium Alginate Capsules: Particularities of Natural Antioxidants and Plant Germplasm Systems

SCHNEIDER TEIXEIRA A.; DELADINO L.

Basic Protocols in Encapsulation of Food Ingredients

Springer Nature

Año: 2021; p. 1 - 202

Calcium alginate beads have been extensively used in microencapsulation because they are extremely easy to prepare on a lab-scale, the process is very mild, it can be conducted in sterile environments, and virtually any ingredient can be encapsulated, whether it is hydrophobic or hydrophilic, sensitive to temperature, liquid or viscous oil or solid, and even shoot tips. However, for each specific active compound, fundamental understanding of the physical and chemical phenomena determining stability, release, perception, and final use must be taken into account. Natural antioxidants from Ilex paraguariensis were encapsulated for food applications, as a practical solution to protect them from the surrounding medium (other food constituents or gastric juices) or the processing conditions during food production.Moreover, controlled release of the active compound can be also a desired objective.Whereas, in the case of explants, encapsulation allows the subsequent application of very drastic treatments including preculture with high sucrose concentrations and desiccation to low moisture contents which would be highly damaging or lethal to nonencapsulated samples. Thus, the same technique, with identical encapsulating materials, can be used for these two very different purposes of research in agri-food. Alginate beads with shoot tips of a many number of species had been successfully cryopreserved. An encapsulation-dehydration or encapsulation-vitrification protocol comprises the following steps: pretreatment, encapsulation, preculture, desiccation, freezing and storage, warming, and regrowth.