Oil encapsulation in core-shell alginate capsules by inverse gelation. I: dripping methodology

The production of capsules by inverse gelation consists of adding dropwise oil containing calcium dispersion into an alginate bath. A dripping technique to produce capsules from oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions was proposed by Abang. However, little is known about the oil encapsulation using water-in-oil (W/O) emulsions. This work aims to develop a new method of W/O emulsions encapsulation by inverse gelation. The success of the W/O emulsion encapsulation is due to three factors: 1) use of an emulsion with moderate stability (50 min); 2) production of an emulsion with at least 90 g/L of CaCl₂ and 3) addition of ethanol (20% v/v) into the alginate bath. Both wet and dry capsules were obtained with a spherical shape with diameters of 7 and 3.6 mm, respectively. All volume of oil was encapsulated and the oil loading in the wet and dry capsules was of 23 and 68% v/v, respectively.