Spray-dried oil powder with ultrahigh oil content

We report a new facile route to the production of solid oil powders with an oil weight content of as high as 90% or beyond. The proposed method starts from a standard protein-stabilized oil-in-water emulsion in which a protein monolayer absorbed at the oil-water interface is successively cross linked by a thermal treatment. The emulsion is then spray dried as for ordinary emulsions, however without the addition of hydrocolloids typically needed when spray drying liquid oil dispersions. This leads to a final solid oil powder in which the total mass is constituted of oil, proteins, and eventual buffer salts and in which the elasticity of the cross-linked protein monolayer is alone sufficient to stabilize the powder and to limit any oil leakage. To best illustrate the potential in food applications and to preserve the food-grade nature of the constituents, we have used thermal denaturation at 80 °C for 15 min to cross link a β-lactoglobulin-stabilized olive oil-in-water emulsion and to produce the corresponding solid oil powder. Because of the simplicity and flexibility of the proposed pathway, the present method can be used inexpensively to convert any type of hydrophobic liquid into the corresponding solid powder and is then particularly suitable for cosmetic, pharmaceutical, medical, biotechnological, and food applications.