Nanoencapsulation of linseed oil loaded in chia mucilage as wall material : characterization and its usage in the enrichment of orange juice

Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (Ꙍ- 3-PUFA) have a wide of health benefits, however, its low intake in the western diet and its high oxidation power revealed the need to develop new technologies to supplementation and to decrease the oil oxidation process. In this work, linseed oil (LO) was nanoencapsulated using chia seed mucilage (CSM) as wall material. The nanoparticles were evaluated regarding particle size distribution, zeta potential, pH, span value, viscosity, encapsulation efficiency, loading capacity, transmission electron microscopy, FT-IR and thermal properties. The nanoparticles suspension was spray-dried and the powder was used for the enrichment of orange juice, and sensory evaluation was performed. Nanoparticles in solution presented an average size of 356 ± 2.83 nm, and zeta potential of – 22.75 ± 3.89 mV. The linseed oil nanoparticles (LO-NP) showed spherical shape with encapsulation efficiency of 50 %, loading capacity of 21.37 % and the interaction between linseed oil and chia seed mucilage was evidenced by FT-IR. The thermal analisys showed that LO-NP and CSM were thermally stable up to 300 ºC, suggesting that CSM has satisfactory thermal behavior to be used as wall material. The orange juice had 83 % of overall acceptance and no siginificant difference was observed between orange juice and orange juice with LO-NP. The obtained results suggest that CSM can be used to nanoencapsulate hydrophobic compounds like Ꙍ- 3-PUFA, increasing its solubility, and spray-dried LO-NP can be used in the enrichment of orange juice