Cocoa butter and whey protein isolate based emulgels as delivery vehicles for probiotics

Abstract

Emulgels are biphasic formulations which are being explored as delivery vehicles for food and pharmaceutical applications. One such application is the delivery of probiotics. Probiotcs are the microbes which can confer health benefits when consumed in sufficient quantity. The development of the probiotics delivery system is a tricky endeavor. Most of the systems use techniques which employ high temperature. Due to this reason, the viability of the probiotics in the formulations greatly reduces. This motivated us in designing a series of emulgels based on cocoa butter and whey protein isolate which could be used for the delivery of the probiotics. Cocoa butter and whey protein isolates were chosen because both these components have been used based formulations have been used independently for the delivery of probiotics. The use of both the components for the formulation of the emulgels was expected to imbibe the advantages of both cocoa butter and whey protein isolate. In the study, we have prepared a series of emulgels by mixing cocoa butter and whey protein isolate solution in water. The emulgels were yellowish white in color. The microscopic studies suggested that the whey protein isolate (aqueous phase) was homogenously dispersed in cocoa butter matrix. XRD studies indicated an alteration in the crystal structure on a composition-dependent manner. Mechanical study indicated viscoelastic nature of the emulgels. The addition of whey protein isolate within the cocoa butter matrix was able to significantly improve the viability of the probiotics on a time scale.