Electroencapsulation: Fundamentals and applications in food industry

Encapsulation may be defined as a process to entrap one substance within another substance, thereby producing particles with diameters of a few nm to a few mm. Due to the sensitivity of bioactive compounds there are different encapsulation techniques. In recent years, electroencapsulation or encapsulation using electrohydrodynamic processes (electrospinning and elcrospraying) which is a simple and effective technique to preserve and increase bioavailibility of components, has attracted particular attention of food and drug scientists. In this technique the electrostatic force is used to form charged jet from polymer solution containing bioactive components. After that solvent is evaporated, ultrathin structures are formed. The process is called electrospraying if the droplets are atomized in the electric field and the capsule (bead shape) is formed. In the event of the formation of a stable jet and nanofibers, the process is called electrospinning. Nanofibers have outstanding features such as high surface area to volume ratio and high porosity. These features have led to the use of nanofibers for drug delivery, filtration, tissue engineering, encapsulation of bioactive compounds, enzyme stabilization, as bimolecular sensors and food packaging. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the fundamentals of electrospinning to produce nanofibers suitable for food technology application particularly for use in encapsulation.