Preparation of uniform calcium alginate gel beads by membrane emulsification coupled with internal gelation

Abstract

ABSTRACT:With the objective of making calcium alginate gel beads with small and uniform size, membrane emulsification coupled with internal gelation was proposed. Spherical gel beads with mean size of about 50 m, and even smaller ones in water, and with narrow size distribution were successfully obtained. Experimental studies focusing mainly on the effect of process parameters on bead properties were performed. The size of the beads was mainly dependent on the diameter of the membrane pores. High transmembrane pressure made for large gel beads with wide size distribution. Low sodium alginate concentration produced nonspherical beads, whereas a high concentration was unsuitable for the production of small beads with narrow distribution. Thus 1.5% w/v was enough. A high surfactant concentration favored the formation of small beads, but the adverse effect on mass transfer should be considered in this novel process.

Production of uniform droplets using membrane, microchannel and microfluidic emulsification devices

“…The mean particle size primarily depends on the mean droplet size and can range from less than 1 µm to several hundred µm with a typical CV of 10−20%. ME can be used to produce particles from a wide range of organic and inorganic materials, including hydrogels (Liu et al, 2003), polymers (Ma et al, 1999), inorganic oxides (Yanagishita et al, 2004), carbon (Yamamoto et al, 2010), metals (Kakazu et al, 2010), and solid lipids (Kukizaki and Goto (2007b). In addition to coherent solids, ME can also be used for generation of porous particles (Wagdare et al, 2011), particles with core/shell morphology (Sawalha et al, 2008;Chu et al, 2003), and colloidosomes (Thompson et al, 2011).…”

Alginate microspheres prepared by internal gelation: Development and effect on insulin stability

“…In order to obtain unimodal distribution of microspheres, which allows a better control of drug kinetics, some strategies like the membrane emulsification/internal gelation method (Liu et al, 2003) were developed. However, using the method presented in this study, an identical mean diameter and SPAN factor were obtained.…”

High-pressure Homogenizer Design

“…Physical crosslinking methods are helixcoil transition induced by cooling below the phase transition temperature (Zhou et al, 2007), thermal gelation induced by heating to about 37°C (Wu et al, 2008) and ionotropic gelation induced by the addition of multivalent ions (Liu et al, 2003). Melt solidification involves performing membrane emulsification above the melting point of the dispersed phase followed by emulsion cooling.…”