Scale-up in the synthesis of nanoparticles for encapsulation of agroindustrial active principles

ABSTRACT Given the potentiality of nanoparticles (NP) to load substances as active principle of drugs, cosmetics and food, there is interest in increasing its production. Particularly in the agroindustrial area, the byproducts are source of functional compounds that must be stabilized by encapsulation, for example, to allow its application. Considering the amount of generated byproducts, it is necessary to understand the encapsulation synthesis in a high scale dimension. In this way, the active compounds vitamin C (from the byproduct of the acerola processing) and polyphenols (from the byproduct of grape processing) were nanoencapsulated into chitosan NP at three reactional volumes: 0.1; 1.0 and 10.0 dm3. The NP were characterized for yield, particle size, morphology, encapsulation efficiency and release profile. In general, the increase in scale did not influence these parameters. It is found a close similarity for NP size value between the 0.1 and 10.0 dm3 reactional volumes. For example, for the blank control, the size was 155±6 and 227±118 nm respectively for 0.1 and 10.0 dm3 reactional volumes. Similarly for the encapsulated acerola byproduct extract (373±44 and 400±83 nm) and ascorbic acid (279±29 and 217±29 nm). For the encapsulated skin grape extract, the size decreased sharply from 1040 to 308 nm. The yield per volume ratio was about 1.3 mg cm-3. Additional analysis for NP with encapsulated skin grape extract, by Scanning Electronic Microscopy, showed uniformly distributed spherical structures and the release profile was similar for all reactional volumes. Thus, the system is suitable for scale-up for NP production.