Microencapsulation of brucea javanica oil: Characterization, stability and optimization of spray drying conditions

- The brucea javanica oil microcapsules were successfully prepared by complex coacervation.
- A Box-Behnken design was used to optimize the spray drying process.
- The microcapsules were characterized by FT-IR, DSC and XRD.
- The storage and oxidative stability of brucea javanica oil was enhanced by microencapsulation.

The aim of this work was to obtain the optimized formulation for brucea javanica oil (BJO) microencapsulation by spray drying with high yield and evaluate their resistance to oxidation through the stability test. The parameters of spray drying such as inlet air temperature, feed flow rate and drying air flow speed were optimized using a Box-Behnken design. Moisture content and process yield were analyzed as responses. The spray-dried microcapsules were characterized by SEM, DSC, FT-IR and XRD. At the optimal conditions, the encapsulation efficiency (EE) reached a maximum of 82.9% (w/w) and loading capacity (LC) reached 10.56% (w/w). The study of oxidative stability showed that microcapsules were stable against oxidation. The methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) assay demonstrated that microcapsulation did not influence the anticancer activity of BJO.