Mechanical stability of calcium alginate liquid core capsules

Abstract

The encapsulation of bioactive ingredients is utilized in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, nourishments, cosmetics, and numerous different enterprises. The mechanical strength of calcium alginate capsules is important because it is essential to factor in the succ ess and failure of encapsulation. The manipulating process parameters in the extrusion dripping method is required and most of the times it is conducted by trial and error approach. The main objective of this study on the project was to develop a mathematical model based on the effect of process parameters studied on the size and mechanical strength of the capsules formed by the extrusion method. Calcium chloride, CaCl2 solution was dripped into an alginate solution using different size of needles. The capsules formed were analyzed to determine the diameter, thickness and mechanical strength of the capsules formed. In this project, the mechanical strength depends on the size of capsules so the increases in the size of capsules than increases of mechanical strength of the capsules. The mathematical model correlation was developed by the Deformation Percentage to correlate the process parameter and capsules forming solution properties. The results of this project showed that the determination of the appropriate process parameter for uniform size and alginate capsule formation could be done using the development model.