Journal
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL
Volume 366, Issue -, Pages 27-32Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA
DOI: 10.1016/j.cej.2019.02.021
Keywords
Microfluidic; Glass-capillary; Soybean lecithin; Solvents
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Funding
- CNPq [140283/2013-7, 305477/2012-9]
- FAEPEX/UNICAMP [2146-16]
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We demonstrated the microfluidic production of W/O/W double emulsion droplets aiming formation of beta-carotene-incorporated giant liposomes for food and/or pharmaceutical applications. For this purpose, glass-capillary microfluidic devices were fabricated to create a truly three-dimensional flow aiming production of giant unilamellar liposomes by solvent evaporation process after W/O/W double emulsion droplet templates formation. A great challenge of microfluidic production of monodisperse and stable W/O/W double emulsion templates for this proposal is the replacement of organic solvents potentially toxic for phospholipids dissolution. Besides, the high cost of several semi-synthetic phospholipids commonly used for giant liposome formation remains as a major technological challenge to be overcome. Thus, beta-carotene-incorporated giant liposomes were generated using biocompatible solvents with low toxic potential (ethyl acetate and pentane) and non-purified soybean lecithin - a food-grade phospholipid mixture with low cost - by dewetting and evaporation of the solvents forming the oily intermediate phase of W/O/W double emulsion droplet templates. Our results showed monodisperse beta-carotene-loaded giant liposomes with diameter ranging between 100 mu m and 180 mu m and a stability of approximately 7 days. In this way, a single-step microfluidic process with highly accurate control of size distribution was developed. This microfluidic process proposed is potentially useful for a broad range of applications in protection and delivery of active compounds.
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