Continuous Encapsulation of Vitamin E Using Polycaprolactone and Tween 20 in a Micro-Channel

Encapsulation of vitamin E is the preservation of the biological activities of vitamin E for various applications. In the first part of this research, factors affecting the batch encapsulation of vitamin E, including PCL concentration, the concentration of Tween 20, and the volumetric ratio of aqueous phase to organic phase were experimentally investigated. The Box-Behnken experimental design and response surface methodology were implemented to determine the optimal operating conditions of the batch encapsulation. At the optimal conditions, the percentage of vitamin E encapsulation (%EC) was 98.69%, using the PCL concentration, the Tween 20 concentration, and the volumetric ratio of aqueous phase to organic phase of 3.6 g/L, 0.6 g/L, and 0.9 mL: 1 mL, respectively. The second part is to enhance the productivity by applying the optimized formulation of vitamin E encapsulation in a continuous process using a micro-channel encapsulator. The effect of residence time was investigated. At the residence time of 1 s, the percentage of vitamin E encapsulation of 97.28% and the productivity of 153.61 mg/(mL∙min) were achieved.