Preparation and characterization of cocoa butter and whey protein isolate based emulgels for pharmaceutical and probiotics delivery applications

Abstract

Emulsion gel (emulgel) technology has proven to be one of the viable options for designing delivery systems for drugs and probiotics. Such formulations are quite stable as compared to emulsions but possess all the advantages of the biphasic formulations. In our research study, we have developed a series of emulgels using cocoa butter as the fat phase and whey protein isolate (WPI) solution as the aqueous phase for designing efficient delivery systems. The prepared emulgel was characterized by microscopy, XRD, FTIR, mechanical, and electrical analyses. The aqueous phase was present as globular structures which were dispersed uniformly throughout the fat matrix. There was a change in the crystal habit due to hydrogen bonding which ultimately resulted in the alteration in the crystallinity index, viscoelastic and thermal properties of the formulations. An increase in the WPI solution consequently resulted in the decrease in the impedance of the emulgels. The WPI containing emulgels showed better drug diffusion and probiotics viability as compared to the cocoa butter only formulation (control).

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

Keywords:

• Probiotics
• cocoa butter
• whey protein isolate
• encapsulation

Additional information

Funding

The present study has been conducted under Indo-Korea joint research program of Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (Sanction order # INT/Korea/P-37, June 15, 2017) and under the framework of International Cooperation Program managed by the NRF (2016K1A3A1A19945059), Republic of Korea.