Microencapsulation of lemongrass essential oil

Two different formulations were used for preparing encapsulant (wall material), one containing only gum arabic and the other containing a blend of gum arabic and maltodextrin (3:1 m/m), according to the study of de Souza et al. (6). For each formulation, a solution (20%) of the wall material incorporated with 25% lemongrass essential oil was used. Gum arabic and maltodextrin were dissolved in distilled water under stirring and hydrated for 12 h at 25 °C to ensure complete saturation of the polymer molecules. Then, the lemongrass essential oil was gradually added to the wall material solution and stirred at 3000 rpm for 5 min using a homogenizer (Ultra-Turrax; T18, IKA, Wilmington, NC, USA). The solution was sonicated (Branson Digital Sonifier® model 102C; Branson Ultrasonics Corporation, Danbury, CT, USA) for 2 min at 240 W. The formed emulsion was used as the liquid source in the spray drying. After the drying procedure, the powder was stored in metalized and hermetically sealed packages at 4 °C until further analysis. Data were analyzed in triplicate.