New technology offers simple, low-cost method for encapsulation

Novel technology could be useful in the nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, food and beverage, cosmetic and personal care industries Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a simple, low-cost method for accurately encapsulating core materials (which could be pure liquid or liquid containing suspended functional ingredients) that could make important contributions to a wide range of industry applications. The process, known as a liquid-liquid encapsulation system, introduces a drop of core material through a nozzle, which impacts on a host bath, containing a floating shell layer on the surface. When a complex interaction of the core material with the shell layer occurs, it creates a stable encapsulation which protects the core material and safeguards it from an aggressive environment enabling a timely release of the cargo material to a targeted area. "The key to this technology is that everything is in liquid state - the core, the shell, and finally submerged inside a liquid bath. This provides extraordinary flexibility in terms of core shell combinations. At least 15 of these types of combinations have already been demonstrated," said Sushanta Mitra, executive director, Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology and professor of Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo. "It is ultrafast with each encapsulation taking only 50 milliseconds.