Sistemas carreadores baseados em emulsões água em óleo em água (W1/O/W2) empregados no encapsulamento de ferro

Abstract

Anemia is a condition that affects the development and productivity of more than a third of the world's population. It is mainly caused by a deficiency of iron in the diet. One way to increase the amount of iron ingested by the population is the addition of this iron to food, fortification through microencapsulation. There are several techniques used in the microencapsulation of iron, double emulsion is one of many techniques. Double water-in-oil-in-water (W1/O/W2) emulsions are small droplets of water, within larger oil droplets that are dispersed in water. The present work investigated W1/O/W2 emulsions for iron encapsulation, aiming to characterize as emulsions and identify a bioaccessibility of iron in in vitro gastrointestinal simulations for adults and children. The study formed stable emulsions from whey protein isolation and polyglycerol polyricinoleate as emulsifying agents, tara gum as a thickening agent and sucrose as an osmotic active substance. Double emulsions made from 12% WPI, 0.8% tara gum and 2% sucrose considered more stable for 7 days and with high encapsulation efficiency (96.95 ± 1.00%), in addition to high bioaccessibility in gastrointestinal simulation for adults (49.54 ± 5.50%) and children (39.71 ± 2.33%). Finally, the study showed that double emulsions can form stable systems with high iron bioaccessibility even in infant gastric systems, indicating the possibility of using double emulsions to fortify foods with iron.