The virgin coconut oil (VCO) emulsion powder characteristics: effect of pickering emulsion with microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and different drying techniques

Virgin coconut oil (VCO) has many health benefits; however, drinking of VCO directly is still uncommon. In order to overcome this problem, microencapsulation can be one of the solutions. Unfortunately, emulsion is an unstable system and rapidly separates into two layers. Therefore, in this study, we carried out the explanatory research of microencapsulation process with descriptive analysis. It comprised two emulsion treatments, using homogenization method, and three drying techniques, to determine the effect of Pickering emulsion with microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and different drying techniques on the characteristics of VCO powder (before drying: creaming index and emulsion droplet size; and after drying: drying yield, color intensity, moisture content, particle morphology, microencapsulation efficiency, peroxide value, rehydration particle size, and dissolving time). The results demonstrated that all emulsion treatments did not depict any emulsion instability up to 21 days of storage, and the obtained VCO powders had different characteristics. The highest microencapsulation efficiency was 33.49±1.59%, obtained from the emulsion using Tween 80 and MCC by spray drying, and the lowest peroxide value was 0.464±0.084 mEq O2/kg, obtained from the emulsion using Tween 80 and MCC by vacuum drying. The future application of this study is expected to produce VCO powder that can improve the ease handling of VCO and also commercialize for being used as a non-dairy creamer.