Eur Food Res Technol (2014) 239:1077–1085
DOI 10.1007/s00217-014-2328-3
SHORT COMMUNICATION
Microencapsulation of capsanthin by self‑emulsifying
nanoemulsions and stability evaluation
Yaping An · Xiangxing Yan · Bin Li · Yan Li
Received: 1 July 2014 / Revised: 20 August 2014 / Accepted: 1 September 2014 / Published online: 17 September 2014
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014
Abstract The application of natural colorants in food
products has been gained more and more attention, not
only due to their nutritional advantages, but also their
functional properties. The purpose of this research was to
encapsulate capsanthin from paprika by nanoemulsions
(NEs), and the stability of resultant NEs was evaluated. The
NE systems were first optimized by dropwise adding mixed
organic phase [5 wt% medium-chain triglyceride (MCT)
and 10 wt% surfactant containing span 20 and tween 80
with the weight ratio 1:3 and HLB 13.4] into water phase.
Then capsanthin was mixed with MCT as the oil phase.
With the presence of capsanthin, the oil phase composi-
tion had great impact on the particle size of NEs that the
droplet size increased from 30 to 150 nm with increasing
capsanthin content. Generally, higher temperature and stir-
ring speed would decrease the particle size, which also
depended on the surfactant-to-oil ratio. The stability results
demonstrated that there was no obvious change on the cap-
santhin NE droplet size and entrapped capsanthin content
after 1 month storage at ambient temperature. Our results
are important for the design of food-grade delivery systems
to encapsulate natural lipophilic pigments or ingredients.
Keywords Capsanthin · Encapsulation · Nanoemulsion ·
Stability · Pigments
Y. An · X. Yan · B. Li · Y. Li (*)
College of Food Science and Technology, Huazhong
Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
e-mail: yanli@mail.hzau.edu.cn
Y. An · X. Yan · B. Li · Y. Li
Key Laboratory of Environment Correlative Dietology
(Huazhong Agricultural University), Ministry of Education,
Wuhan, China
Introduction
Capsanthin, a kind of important oxygen carotenoids used as
colorants, is extracted from the paprika oleoresin which is
common in human diet [1, 2]. It is of the interest in the field
of food and cosmetic technology due to its strong coloring
capacity and high antioxidant capability caused by their
multiple conjugated double bonds, which has been related
to a high antitumor power [3–5]. Moreover, it has been
reported that the antioxidative activities of capsanthin are
stronger than β-carotene [6]. Therefore,adding the capsan-
thin to a diet can be helpful against oxidative damage and
reduce the harm of some disease. However, the utilization
of capsanthin or other carotenoids in food industry is cur-
rently limited to their poor water solubility, low bioavail-
ability and chemical instability [2]. It was found that the
stability of capsanthin could be enhanced after the encapsu-
lation of complex coacervate [7].
Colloidal delivery systems are popular to encapsulate
the lipophilic bioactive components, such as emulsions,
nanoemulsions (NEs) and microemulsions [8–11]. Among
them, nanoemulsions have been widely used to encapsu-
late the hydrophobic bioactivity components for protecting
them from damage, increasing their solubility in aqueous
media and improving oral bioavailability [12–16]. NEs,
with droplet diameter <100 nm, are formed by dispersing
one liquid via a nanoequilibrium emulsification process,
where the droplets are typically stabilized against subse-
quent fusion by the surfactant [11, 17]. Contrary to micro-
emulsions, NEs are thermodynamically unstable systems;
however, they may have a long kinetic stability [18, 19].
The size of the droplets in NEs is often much smaller than
the wavelength of light; therefore, they do not scatter light
strongly leading to their transparent or translucent appear-
ance [11, 20]. All of these characteristic properties have led
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