Mechanistic Insight Into the Release Kinetics of d-Limonene From Electrosprayed Alyssum homolocarpum Seed Gum Nanoparticles at Simulated Mouth Conditions

The present study aimed at investigating and modelling the release behaviour of encapsulated d-limonene from electrosprayed Alyssum homolocarpum seed gum (AHSG) nanoparticles. For this purpose, release profiles of d-limonene from 10% or 20% loaded nanocapsules were obtained in deionised water and simulated mouth conditions by a spectrophotometric method. The experimental results showed that complete release takes ranging between 7 and 15 min, depending on the d-limonene loading and type of release medium. A gradual increase in the flavour release rate over time without initial burst revealed there are several phenomena involved in the release process due to the hydrophilic nature of AHSG nanocapsules. Based on these findings, a mechanistic approach modelled flavour diffusion as a transport process of combined matrix swelling and erosion mechanisms. The model parameters were obtained via best fitting procedure applying simulated annealing (SA) algorithm. The good correlation between the predicted and experimental results of d-limonene release confirmed validation of the developed model. The simulation results showed that although matrix erosion contributes more than diffusion process in d-limonene release from AHSG nanocapsules, the model describing the release mechanism as only governed by the erosion is not able to provide accurate predictions of flavour release as compared to the coupled model.