Chia Oil Microcapsules Obtained by Different Drying Methods

A technology used to protect chia oil from lipid oxidation during processing and storage is microencapsulation. Thus, microcapsules containing chia oil could be applied as an ingredient to develop enriched foods with ω-3 fatty acids. The objective of this technology is to achieve high microencapsulation efficiency and provide greater oxidative stability to the chia oil. This work compares microcapsules obtained by different methods such as spray-drying and freeze-drying. To establish relationships between the microencapsulated chia oil using both methodologies and some of the characterization parameters studied, a multivariate analysis was carried out considering the microcapsules obtained from the parental emulsions with 10 or 15% w/w of chia oil, 10% w/w of lactose, and 10% w/w of sodium caseinate, whose aqueous phases were or not heat-treated at 60 or 100 °C, 30 min. The results show that the main components 1 (CP1) and 2 (CP2) explain 46.7 and 38.1% of the observed variability, respectively, totaling around 85%. The CP1 allowed separation of the microcapsules obtained by spray-drying from the freeze-drying ones, while the CP2 permitted to discriminate within the chia oil microencapsulated by freeze-drying, the systems whose aqueous phases were treated or not at 100 °C, 30 min from the rest of the microcapsules. The multivariate analysis made it possible to differentiate the microcapsules obtained by spray-drying and the freeze-drying ones. The former being associated with greater luminosity and microencapsulation efficiency, as well as a lower level of moisture content, water activity, and b* (blue-yellow component of the CIELab system) values.