{"title":"Freeze-Dried Essential Oils Encapsulated in Biopolymeric Matrices: Design, Formulation, and Stability: A Comprehensive Review","authors":"Bertrand Muhoza, Angelo Uriho","doi":"10.1007/s11483-025-09974-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In view of using natural ingredients in food, extensive research has been conducted on the extraction, encapsulation, and application of essential oils. Although essential oils are used as antimicrobial agents, antioxidants, pesticides, and fragrances, they have low solubility in water and are sensitive to high temperatures and oxidation. Techniques such as spray drying, freeze drying, coacervation, liposomes, and emulsions are used to encapsulate essential oils and increase their stability and water dispersibility. High temperatures during spray drying can lead to thermal oxidation, and the phospholipid layers of liposomes are sensitive to oxidation and mechanical stress. Emulsions are not thermodynamically stable and are susceptible to coalescence, Oswald ripening, and flocculation. Encapsulation in biopolymers limits the volatility, enhances the dispersibility in water and thermal stability, and allows sustained release. Freeze drying is used to preserve encapsulated essential oils due to low-temperature. Freezing temperature influences the size of ice crystals, which in turn may lead to powder with small or large pores. Additionally, biopolymers present at the ice interface govern the ice crystal size, which later influences the pore size and porosity of freeze-dried powder. Powders with high porosity disperse faster but have low encapsulation efficiency and are susceptible to oxidative degradation during storage. Small-pore powders have high encapsulation efficiency but have limited solubility in water. In this prospect, this review explores how wall materials, encapsulation systems, and freeze-drying conditions affect the properties, stability, and release of essential oils encapsulated in biopolymeric matrices; and finally, challenges and prospects for the study are presented.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":564,"journal":{"name":"Food Biophysics","volume":"20 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2025-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Food Biophysics","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11483-025-09974-7","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"FOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In view of using natural ingredients in food, extensive research has been conducted on the extraction, encapsulation, and application of essential oils. Although essential oils are used as antimicrobial agents, antioxidants, pesticides, and fragrances, they have low solubility in water and are sensitive to high temperatures and oxidation. Techniques such as spray drying, freeze drying, coacervation, liposomes, and emulsions are used to encapsulate essential oils and increase their stability and water dispersibility. High temperatures during spray drying can lead to thermal oxidation, and the phospholipid layers of liposomes are sensitive to oxidation and mechanical stress. Emulsions are not thermodynamically stable and are susceptible to coalescence, Oswald ripening, and flocculation. Encapsulation in biopolymers limits the volatility, enhances the dispersibility in water and thermal stability, and allows sustained release. Freeze drying is used to preserve encapsulated essential oils due to low-temperature. Freezing temperature influences the size of ice crystals, which in turn may lead to powder with small or large pores. Additionally, biopolymers present at the ice interface govern the ice crystal size, which later influences the pore size and porosity of freeze-dried powder. Powders with high porosity disperse faster but have low encapsulation efficiency and are susceptible to oxidative degradation during storage. Small-pore powders have high encapsulation efficiency but have limited solubility in water. In this prospect, this review explores how wall materials, encapsulation systems, and freeze-drying conditions affect the properties, stability, and release of essential oils encapsulated in biopolymeric matrices; and finally, challenges and prospects for the study are presented.
期刊介绍：
Biophysical studies of foods and agricultural products involve research at the interface of chemistry, biology, and engineering, as well as the new interdisciplinary areas of materials science and nanotechnology. Such studies include but are certainly not limited to research in the following areas: the structure of food molecules, biopolymers, and biomaterials on the molecular, microscopic, and mesoscopic scales; the molecular basis of structure generation and maintenance in specific foods, feeds, food processing operations, and agricultural products; the mechanisms of microbial growth, death and antimicrobial action; structure/function relationships in food and agricultural biopolymers; novel biophysical techniques (spectroscopic, microscopic, thermal, rheological, etc.) for structural and dynamical characterization of food and agricultural materials and products; the properties of amorphous biomaterials and their influence on chemical reaction rate, microbial growth, or sensory properties; and molecular mechanisms of taste and smell.
A hallmark of such research is a dependence on various methods of instrumental analysis that provide information on the molecular level, on various physical and chemical theories used to understand the interrelations among biological molecules, and an attempt to relate macroscopic chemical and physical properties and biological functions to the molecular structure and microscopic organization of the biological material.
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