Spray-Dried Microcapsules of Cheese Whey and Whey Permeate as a Strategy to Protect Chia Oil from Oxidative Degradation

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: Cheese whey and whey permeate are dairy industry by-products usually sent to effluent treatment or incorrectly disposed in the environment, generating costs for the production of dairy products and environmental problems due to the high organic load. Cheese whey and whey permeate can be reused as wall materials to form chia oil microcapsules, which act as a barrier to prooxidants. This study aims to develop an encapsulation method by spray-drying to protect chia oil using dairy by-products as wall materials. EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH: We evaluated cheese whey, whey permeate and mixtures of m(cheese whey):m(whey permeate)=50, 70 and 80% as encapsulating agents with the spray-drying process. Initially, we characterized the chia oil and encapsulating materials. Chia oil emulsions were prepared using the encapsulating materials and an emulsifier. The stability of the emulsions was evaluated by creaming index, and they were characterized according to size distribution and polydispersity index. Emulsions were encapsulated in a spray dryer with inlet and outlet air temperature at 125 and 105 °C, respectively. After encapsulation, we assessed the oxidative degradation of chia oil over 30 days of storage by determining the peroxide index. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Emulsions presented creaming index between 51 and 83% in all formulations, and the oxidative stability of microencapsulated chia oil was significantly higher than that of free chia oil after 30 days. Wall material combination affected both encapsulation efficiency and oxidation protection. The cheese whey and whey permeate (8:2) mixture exhibited the highest encapsulation efficiency (70.07%) and ability to protect the chia seed oil. After 30 days, the peroxide value was below the maximum limit considered safe for human consumption. NOVELTY AND SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTION: According to these results, dairy by-products can be used for encapsulation of oxidation-sensitive oils. This represents an alternative use for dairy by-products, which otherwise are discarded and can impact the environment due to their high organic load. Our findings suggest that dairy by-products can be effectively used as wall materials to generate value-added products.