Development of Pickering water-in-oil-in-water double emulsion delivery system for protection of labile bioactive compounds

We recently showed that the fat crystal shells around water-in-oil (W/O) emulsion droplets could effectively screen the hydrophilic active components from the outer environment (Ghosh et al., Salt Release from Fat Crystal-Stabilized Water-in-Oil Emulsions. 103rd AOCS Annual Meeting, Long Beach, California, USA, May 2012). Formation of crystal shells around dispersed droplets in emulsion is a novel stabilization mechanism in which fat crystals or other suitably surface-active particles absorb on the droplet surface thereby providing a physical barrier to coalescence. This mechanism of stabilization is known as Pickering stabilization. In the proposed research the Pickering stabilized W/O will be used as an internal dispersed phase of a water-in-oil-in-water (W/O/W) double emulsion. Combined Pickering and fat crystal network in the oil phase would provide very high stability of the internal W/O emulsion while multiple layers of proteins and polysaccharides will provide stability to the outer oil droplets (containing water droplets) of the (W/O)/W emulsion. The system developed will be further tested for the simultaneous delivery of both hydrophilic and hydrophobic reactive compounds. Due to inherent stability of the Pickering shell, the active components will be separated from each other, until external factors like temperature change would melt the Pickering shell leading to mixing of the components. This novel delivery system could be utilized in the creation of new flavors during cooking and for the simultaneous delivery of two different types of components that requires separate delivery systems.

Faculty Supervisor:

Supratim Ghosh

Student:

RAVALI NAMBURU

Partner:

Discipline:

Engineering - chemical / biological

Sector:

University:

University of Saskatchewan

Program:

Globalink