High Pressure Microfluidization of Agro by-product to Functionalized Dietary Fiber and Evaluation as a Novel Bakery Ingredient

Sucrose ester alleviates the agglomeration behavior of bamboo shoot dietary fiber treated via high pressure homogenization: Influence on physicochemical, rheological, and structural properties

High-pressure homogenization (HPH) is a physical modification method that can rapidly reduce the particle size of bamboo shoot dietary fiber (BSDF), but it can lead to agglomeration. Therefore, the effects of the addition of sucrose ester (SE) to alleviate the agglomeration of BSDF during HPH were investigated. Compared with BSDF without added SE, BSDF obtained the smallest particle size (276.5 nm) and highest ζ-Potential (53.6 mV) when SE was 5 g/L. Water-holding capacity, oil-holding capacity, swelling capacity, and b* increased, whereas L* and a* decreased significantly with the addition of SE. The shear stress and viscoelasticity of BSDF solution were minimized when 5 g/L SE was added. SE reduced relative crystallinity and thermal stability of BSDF. SE could effectively alleviate the aggregation of BSDF through the mechanism of electrostatic repulsion. This study highlights an innovative and promising strategy for alleviating the agglomeration behavior of BSDF during HPH treatment.

Microfluidics in drug delivery: review of methods and applications

Microfluidics technology has emerged as a promising methodology for the fabrication of a wide variety of advanced drug delivery systems. Owing to its ability for accurate handling and processing of small quantities of fluidics as well as immense control over physicochemical properties of fabricated micro and nanoparticles (NPs), microfluidic technology has significantly improved the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs. This emerging technology has offered numerous advantages over the conventional drug delivery methods for fabricating of a variety of micro and nanocarriers for poorly soluble drugs. In addition, a microfluidic system can be designed for targeted drug delivery aiming to increase the local bioavailability of drugs. This review spots the light on the recent advances made in the area of microfluidics including various methods of fabrication of drug carriers, their characterization, and unique features. Furthermore, applications of microfluidic technology for the robust fabrication and development of drug delivery systems, the existing challenges associated with conventional fabrication methodologies as well as the proposed solutions offered by microfluidic technology have been discussed in details.HighlightsMicrofluidic technology has revolutionized fabrication of tunable micro and nanocarriers.Microfluidic platforms offer several advantages over the conventional fabrication methods.Microfluidic devices hold great promise in controlling the physicochemical features of fabricated drug carriers.Micro and nanocarriers with controllable release kinetics and site-targeting efficiency can be fabricated.Drug carriers fabricated by microfluidic technology exhibited improved pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profiles.

Effects of substitution level and particle size of extruded soybean hull fractions on physicochemical and sensorial properties of high-fiber pan bread during storage

The effect of adding different fractions of extruded and non-extruded soybean hull to wheat flour at 20% and 30% and two-particle size levels (smaller and larger than 150 μm) was studied on the physicochemical, sensorial properties, and the shelf-life of high-fiber molded bread. Increasing the amount of all different fractions of the soybean hull raised the water absorption of the dough. It also increased the ash and crude fiber contents, bread crust lightness, redness and yellowness, bread crumb hardness as well as the cells number per unit area of the crumb. Moreover, it reduced the moisture content, specific volume, porosity, and overall acceptability of the pan bread. The treatments containing the fractions with larger particle sizes of the soybean hull had higher dough stability time, bread-specific volume, porosity, and lightness, as well as lower crumb hardness and moisture content, and crust redness and yellowness than the corresponding ones with finer particle sizes. The samples prepared with the extruded fractions with smaller particle sizes showed lower moisture content, hardness, porosity, and specific volume. After studying the bread staling, moisture content and overall acceptance of the samples decreased. In addition, the enthalpy in differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and the signal intensity in x-ray diffraction (XRD) increased during storage. In many cases, the bread with the large-sized extruded fractions of soybean hull at the substitution level of 20% was the most suitable product in most of the variables studied.

Latest developments in the applications of microfluidization to modify the structure of macromolecules leading to improved physicochemical and functional properties

Microfluidization is a unique high-pressure homogenization technique combining various forces such as high-velocity impact, high-frequency vibration, instantaneous pressure drop, intense shear rate, and hydrodynamic cavitation. Even though it is mainly used on emulsion-based systems and known for its effects on particle size and surface area, it also significantly alters physicochemical and functional properties of macromolecules including hydration properties, solubility, viscosity, cation-exchange capacity, rheological properties, and bioavailability. Besides, the transformation of structure and conformation due to the combined effects of microfluidization modifies the material characteristics that can be a base for new innovative food formulations. Therefore, microfluidization is being commonly used in the food industry for various purposes including the formation of micro- and nano-sized emulsions, encapsulation of easily degradable bioactive compounds, and improvement in functional properties of proteins, polysaccharides, and dietary fibers. Although the extent of modification through microfluidization depends on processing conditions (e.g., pressure, number of passes, solvent), the nature of the material to be processed also changes the outcomes significantly. Therefore, it is important to understand the effects of microfluidization on each food component. Overall, this review paper provides an overview of microfluidization treatment, summarizes the applications on macromolecules with specific examples, and presents the existing problems.

Development of Health Products from Natural Sources

BioActive Compounds (BACs) recovered from food or food by-product matrices are useful in maintaining well being, enhancing human health, and modulating immune function to prevent or to treat chronic diseases. They are also generally seen by final consumers as safe, non-toxic and environment-friendly. Despite the complex process of production, chemical characterization, and assessment of health effects, BACs must also be manufactured in stable and bioactive ingredients to be used in pharmaceutical, food and nutraceutical industry. Generally, vegetable derivatives occur as sticky raw materials with pervasive smell and displeasing flavor. Also, they show critical water solubility and dramatic stability behavior over time, involving practical difficulties for industrial use. Therefore, the development of novel functional health products from natural sources requires the design of a suitable formulation to delivery BACs at the site of action, preserve stability during processing and storage, slow down the degradation processes, mask lousy tasting or smell, and increase the bioavailability, while maintaining the BACs functionality. The present review focuses on human health benefits, BACs composition, and innovative technologies or formulation approaches of natural ingredients from some selected foods and by-products from industrial food transformations.

Different sized wheat bran fibers as fat mimetic in biscuits: its effects on dough rheology and biscuit quality

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of various particle sized and different amount of plant fibers as fat mimetic for biscuit formulations instead of biscuit fat. The fibers with different particle sizes were obtained from wheat bran and used instead of fat in biscuit formulations. The texture, rheology and quality analyses of low-fat biscuit (30, 20 and 10% fat) were performed and compared with those of the full-fat control sample (40% fat). Results showed that wheat bran fiber with bigger particle size (Long Fiber, LF) were more favorable in terms of textural properties of the dough and the quality parameters of biscuits while the fibers with smaller particle size (Medium Fiber, MF and Small Fiber, SF) improved viscoelastic properties of dough similar to the control. Although the use of these fibers in the production of low-fat biscuits were suitable in terms of workability of dough increasing fiber content and/or reducing fiber size resulted in harder biscuits with lower spread ratio. This study showed that the texture of biscuits was greatly dependent on the texture of the dough.

Recent advances of controlled drug delivery using microfluidic platforms

Conventional systematically-administered drugs distribute evenly throughout the body, get degraded and excreted rapidly while crossing many biological barriers, leaving minimum amounts of the drugs at pathological sites. Controlled drug delivery aims to deliver drugs to the target sites at desired rates and time, thus enhancing the drug efficacy, pharmacokinetics, and bioavailability while maintaining minimal side effects. Due to a number of unique advantages of the recent microfluidic lab-on-a-chip technology, microfluidic lab-on-a-chip has provided unprecedented opportunities for controlled drug delivery. Drugs can be efficiently delivered to the target sites at desired rates in a well-controlled manner by microfluidic platforms via integration, implantation, localization, automation, and precise control of various microdevice parameters. These features accordingly make reproducible, on-demand, and tunable drug delivery become feasible. On-demand self-tuning dynamic drug delivery systems have shown great potential for personalized drug delivery. This review presents an overview of recent advances in controlled drug delivery using microfluidic platforms. The review first briefly introduces microfabrication techniques of microfluidic platforms, followed by detailed descriptions of numerous microfluidic drug delivery systems that have significantly advanced the field of controlled drug delivery. Those microfluidic systems can be separated into four major categories, namely drug carrier-free micro-reservoir-based drug delivery systems, highly integrated carrier-free microfluidic lab-on-a-chip systems, drug carrier-integrated microfluidic systems, and microneedles. Microneedles can be further categorized into five different types, i.e. solid, porous, hollow, coated, and biodegradable microneedles, for controlled transdermal drug delivery. At the end, we discuss current limitations and future prospects of microfluidic platforms for controlled drug delivery.