Artigo:

Biquinho pepper is rich in capsinoids, which present strong pharmacological effects on health. The lack of pungency assigned to capsinoids make them interesting for the application in pharmaceutical and food industries. The aim of this work was to evaluate the encapsulation of biquinho extracts by supercritical antisolvent technique using Poly(L-lactic acid) as the coating material. A lab-scale apparatus that consists of a CO2 supply system, solution and CO2 injection unit (coaxial nozzle with an internal diameter equal to 127 µm), and a high pressure column was used. The process parameters were: temperature and CO2 flow rate were fixed at 40 ˚C and 20.4 g/min respectively, pressure varied from 8 to 12 MPa, and solution flow rate varied from 0.5 and 1.0 mL/min. The morphology of particles was analyzed using a scanning electron microscope. The micrographies showed that the geometry of the particles was greatly influenced by pressure and solution flow rate. At the conditions of 10 MPa and 0.75 mL/min solution flow rate, small spherical particles (diameter of approximately 5-10 µm) were observed. 1. INTRODUCTION Hot cultivars of Capsicum peppers are rich in capsaicinoids, which are the compounds responsible for the spicy flavor imparted by many peppers. Capsaicinoids have strong pharmacological effects on health, which may be used in pain relief, cancer prevention, and weight reduction (Luo et al., 2011). A similar group of compounds named capsinoids (naturally occurring in some varieties of sweet peppers) seem to have similar effects to those of capsaicinoids, without presenting pungency (Hursel and Westerterp-Plantenga, 2010). These compounds have an ester bond instead of the amide bond between the vanillyl moiety and fatty acid chain normally found in capsaicinoids (Kobata et al., 1998). Known capsinoids include capsiate (CTE), dihydrocapsiate (DHCTE), and nordihydrocapsiate (n-DHCTE). Capsinoids are more unstable than the capsaicinoids: they are labile in polar solvents and probably tend to decompose in protic solvents, such as ethanol and water (Sutoh et al., 2001). Accordingly, the microencapsulation of these compounds can be an alternative to increase stability and ensure protection of their properties. Microparticle drug delivery systems have attracted Área temática: Engenharia e Tecnologia de Alimentos 1great attention in recent years, since they allow increasing bioavailability, provide sustained release and reduce the side effects of drugs (Hoffman, 2008). Traditional encapsulation methods include the emulsification/solvent evaporation (Rogers et al., 2002), jet milling (Schlocker et al., 2006), spray drying (Vehring, 2008) and freeze drying (Semyonov et al., 2010). However, these methods may present limitations, such as relatively large particle size, wide particle size distribution, degradation of the product and difficulties in complete recovery of organic solvents (Wang et al., 2013). The use of supercritical CO2 can be an alternative to overcome the drawbacks of conventional encapsulation methods, and presents many advantages for different applications, such as near ambient operating temperatures, efficient separation, very low or no organic solvent residue, and being environmentally safe solvent (Hakuta et al., 2003, Jung and Perrut,