Hot-Melt Fluidized Bed Encapsulation of Citric Acid with Lipid

Abstract

Abstract Acidulant encapsulation is used to prevent the unwanted acid hydrolysis of other ingredients in food industry. It is preferred to efficiently solidify the molten coatings on acidulant particles. In this article, a molten lipid was atomized in a fluidized bed of cold citric acid powder for the production of encapsulated acidulant. The effect of lipid-to-citric acid mass ratio and atomization pressure on the size distribution of encapsulated particles was investigated. The median particle size (D50) increases with lipid content, and fine particles were reduced with lipid encapsulation. The surface morphology of lipid-encapsulated citric acid particles was studied by scanning electron micrograph to gain insight into the possible encapsulation mechanism. The encapsulation efficiency increases with the lipid-to-citric acid mass ratio.