MICROENCAPSULATION BY SPRAY DRYING

Abstract

Spray drying technique has been widely used for drying heat-sensitive foods, pharmaceuticals, and other substances, because of the solvent rapid evaporation from the droplets, Although most often considered a dehydration process, spray drying can also be used as an encapsulation method when it entraps ‘active’ material within a protective matrix, which is essentially inert to the material being encapsulated. Compared to the other conventional microencapsulation techniques, it offers the attractive advantage of producing microcapsules in a relatively simple continuous processing operation. This chapter will present a brief overview of the main considerations involved in the application of spray drying for microencapsulation, with a special emphasis given to microencapsulation of volatile materials. The potential use of spray drying microencapsulation for pharmaceutical applications, particularly the preparation of microparticulate drug delivery systems, will also be discussed

Key Words:

• drug delivery systems
• entrapment flavours microcapsules microspheres
• retention
• volatiles