Exploration of polysaccharide based nanoemulsions for stabilization and entrapment of curcumin

This study was focussed on developing polysaccharide based nanoemulsion (P-NE) encapsulating curcumin. Two different carrier oil, olive and castor oil, and various polysaccharides like, levan, fucoidan, alginate, guar gum and κ-carrageenan were evaluated for their entrapment efficiency for curcumin. The prepared nanoemulsions with fucoidan and κ-carrageenan were found to have relatively better properties than nanoemulsions prepared with Tween 20. The lowest particle size after ultrasonication was observed when fucoidan was employed as emulsifying agent. Rheological and thermodynamic analyses confirmed better stability of P-NE. Additionally, encapsulation efficiency (EE) of polysaccharides was comparable to Tween 20 with κ-carrageenan exhibiting significantly higher EE than Tween 20. Synergistic increase in the antioxidant potential of the P-NE containing curcumin was also noteworthy. The structural interaction for the observation was proven by FT-IR analysis. The study, first of its kind, was able to evaluate efficiency of different polysaccharides for emulsification of curcumin, without the use of any coemulsifier.