A step forward towards the design of a continuous process to produce hybrid liposome/protein microcapsules

Microfluidics and electrospraying, two revolutionary technologies with industrial potential for the microencapsulation of lipophilic bioactive ingredients, have been combined to produce hybrid liposome/protein microencapsulation structures in a semi-continuous process, reducing the number of steps required for their manufacture. Three different microfluidic mixing devices, one of them consisting of a simple straight microchannel (cross junction design) and the other two exhibiting patterned microchannels with different geometries (Tesla and 'splitting and recombination' designs), were used to mix a liposome suspension with a whey protein concentrate dispersion. The Tesla design showed the best mixing performance, as observed by fluorescence microscopy, so it was selected to be assembled to an electrospraying apparatus. The proposed in-line setup was successfully used to produce the micron-sized encapsulation structures, as observed by scanning electron microscopy.