A comparative study on gelation methods of Calcium Alginate gel particle formation

Abstract

Calcium alginate gel particles have been widely used in various industrial application to encapsulate bioactive materials to achieve the target of control release, immobilisation, and as protection. The gel particles commonly produced in form of either solid gel beads or liquid core capsules. However, the effects of liquid solution formulations on the alginate beads or liquid core capsules has not been studied. This project was initiated to investigate the effect of liquid core solution formulation such as calcium carbonate (CaCO3) with different pH (pH 3 to 5) and different diameter of needles used (0.8 mm, 1.1 mm, and 2.0 mm), on the physical properties of the beads formed by using ‘extrusion dripping method’. The project was done both with and without CaCO3 in order to see t©This item is protectehe differences between dboth alginate beads forme by original copyright d using these two solution formulations. The physical properties of alginate solutions were measured in term of diameter and mechanical strength of the alginate beads. For diameter, beads were arranged onto the petri dish. Mechanical strength was observed by compressing a layer of them between two plates within 5 minutes, in which it is such a new micromanipulation method. The sample was dyed with food-grade colour dye to provide a contrast background to the beads before their image captured. The diameter and the mechanical strength of the beads formed was measured using the image analysis method called ImageJ, that was conducted by taking 2D images in single or multiple projections of the bead with a camera. As for results for both alginate and Ca-alginate beads produced, the diameter of beads increased as the tip diameter increased, but the different pH of CaCl2-acetic acid solution has no significant effect on the diameter. The p-values calculated mostly below than 5%. The compression percentage of mechanical strength for Ca-alginate beads was higher compared to alginate beads because of the Ca2+ presence in the solution. The graph trend for the diameter and the mechanical strength of alginate beads and liquid core capsules produced will be calculated in the coefficient of variance (CV) and the standard deviation (STD) using an Excel software.