Preparation of fish oil microcapsules for enhanced stability and controlled release via plug-and-play microfluidic chips

Fish oil faces challenges like oxidation, low bioavailability, and poor sensory properties. While microencapsulation improves stability, traditional methods suffer from poor monodispersity, core damage, and limited wall material control. In this study, the plug-and-play microfluidic system overcame these limitations by precisely controlling emulsion formation and bypassing charge-matching requirements. Based on microfluidic technology, a plug-and-play microfluidic chip (single-channel and three-parallel channel) was used to control preparation (coefficient of variation < 5 %, shell thickness from 163 to 592 μm, core number from 1 to 5) and scaled-up production of fish oil microcapsules. A multi-dimensional wall material screening platform was developed via ionotropic crosslinking, using sodium alginate as the network skeleton and integrating gum arabic (GA) for emulsifying stability and low-methoxyl pectin (LM) for pH responsiveness. The results showed that the ternary composite wall material system (TCWMS) exhibited lower peroxide value (POV) and Malondialdehyde (MDA) values, and strong hydrogen bonding interactions. The multi-dimensional wall material screening platform and plug-and-play microfluidic chip were built to enable stable, controllable industrial preparation of monodisperse oily microcapsules.