,

Encapsulation of Citronella Oil in

Starch-Based Aggregates by Spray Drying
S. Singkhimuk1, U.Ruktanonchai2 T. Charinpanitkul1and A. Soottiantawat1*
1Center of Excellence in Particle Technology, Faculty of Engineering,Chulalongkorn University, Payathai Patumwan

, Bangkok , Thailand
2National Nanotechnology Center, National Science and Technology Development Agency Thailand Science Park,

Patumtani,Thailand
* E-mail: apinan.s@chula.ac.th
ABSTRACT
The extracted citronella oil was encapsulated in the insoluble rice starch. Spray drying was applied as the encapsulation method at the
slurry of 10 - 40%w/w starch. Native starches as wall materials were dispersed in water prior to the addition of extracted citronella oil. The
slurry was mixed by using high speed homogenizer and high pressure homogenizer. Then the slurry with the starch emulsion was fed to spray
dryer with dried air temperature of 120-180oC. The encapsulated spray dried powders showed a spherical aggregate rice grain particle. Oil
retention was found from 3 to 40 %. By using high content of starch, low inlet air temperature gave high oil retention and slow oil release.
Release mechanism was molecular diffusion and structure cracking.
INTRODUCTION RESULTS
Citronella, geraniol and d-limonene are major mosquito
repellent components in extracted citronella oil .The mosquito a a b a c a da

repellent components in Citronella oil have high volatility and easy

oxidation. Therefore, in this work, the solid form mosquitoes-
repelling natural product to improve their stability was developed as 10 um 10 um 10 um 10 um

a body powder by using the microencapsulation technique.

Figure 1: SEM photos of encapsulated powder at inlet air
tempeture 120 C, (a) 10%, (b) 20%(c)30%(d)40%
Microencapsulation is the technique by which the sensitive
40 40
ingredients (or core) are packed within wall material. The wall aa ba
material prevents the loss of volatile flavors, and controls release of 30 30
Retention(%)

the ingredients. The common technique to produce Citronella

microencapsulated products is spray drying. 20 20

Citronella

The powder in the cosmetic industry is talc and starch which 10 Geraniol 10 Geraniol

have the water repellent properties. Starch has been a traditional D-limonene
D-limonene
0 0
ingredient in body and face powders for hundreds of year. It is bio-
0 10 20 30 40 50 100 150 200
degradable. In this study, the encapsulation of citronella oil was Starch content(%wt) Temperature (°C)
carrying out by spray drying. The type of rice starches as wall
materials (native and high pressure homogenized modified starch), Figure 2: Retention of citronella, geraniol and d-limonene after
the inlet air temperature were investigated in the affect to the spray drying vary (a) starch content, (b) temperature
morphology and major component retention on the final powder.
MATERIALS AND METHOD DISCUSSIONS
Microencapsulated powders preparation •Morphology of powders was the rice granule connecting to be
wall material (native rice starch)
form a spherical aggregate particle.

•Using high content of wall materials resulted bigger sizes of rice

Citronella oil
grain aggregate particle.
10% starch Use at 12000 rpm Use at 200 bar
oil/starch of 1/4 for 5 min. for 1 cycles •Dramatically increased of the retention at 40 wt% starch mixture
could be explained by the higher rate of crust formation of particle
which retarding the loss of flavor during the spray drying.
High Speed High Pressure
Mixing Homogenizer Microfludics Spray Dryer
•The morphology of spray-dried powders from different air inlet
temperature were comparable with no significant difference.

REFERENCES •That might be due to the wall material was insoluble, so the crust
1. Sakulku, U., et al., Characterization and mosquito repellent film formation were not occurred resulting in the no inflation-
activity of citronella oil nanoemulsion. International Journal of shrinkage cycle during the spray drying process.
Pharmaceutics, 2009. 372(1-2): p. 105-111.
2. Tari, T.A. and R.S. Singhal, Starch based spherical aggregates: •The high inlet air temperature reduced the retention
Reconfirmation of the role of amylose on the stability of a model
flavouring compound, vanillin. Carbohydrate Polymers, 2002.
50(3): p. 279-282..
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors thank the Chulalongkorn University Centenary Academic Development Project to the Center of Excellence in Particle Technology and thank to a
National Nanotechnology Center (NANOTEC, NSTDA, Thailand).