Lyotropic Liquid Crystals of Palm Oils-Based Monoacylglycerols and Their Applications in Encapsulating Gac Fruit Oils

This study demonstrated a novel technique for encapsulating β-carotene from Gac fruit oil using lyotropic liquid crystals (LLCs) made of palm oils-based monoacylglycerols (MAGs). The LLC dispersions were formulated by homogenizing distilled and non-distilled MAGs/water mixtures (20, 40 and 60% MAGs, w/w) into Pluronic solution (2%, w/w). Dynamic light scattering technology, differential scanning calorimetry and scanning electron microscopy were applied to characterize physicochemical properties of dispersions and encapsulated powders. Obtained results showed that LLC dispersions made of distilled MAGs showed a unimodal distribution with nanoparticles size (< 1 μm) whereas, samples made of non-distilled MAGs showed a bimodal distribution including both nano and micro-particles. Encapsulated powders had a melting range of 50–70 °C and the polymorphic transformation from the amorphous phase to the crystalline phase tended to increase when adding more lipid components to MAGs/water mixtures. β-carotene had been successfully entrapped by LLCs with a high yield (> 80%) and the degradation of encapsulated β-carotene after four storage weeks was 10–50%. The best protection effect was achieved when using wall-materials possessing 40% distilled MAGs or 60% non-distilled MAGs.