Preparation and characterization of β-carotene nanodispersions stabilized by polyglycerol esters of fatty acids using solvent displacement technique

The effects of six different polyglycerol esters of fatty acids (PGEs) as nonionic emulsi fiers on the physicochemical properties and stability of β-carotene nanoparticles in oil-in-water dispersions prepared by solvent displacement technique were investigated. The β-carotene particle size was measured by a laser diffraction technique, and the stability and retention of β-carotene during storage were determined by HPLC. The particle size of samples varied in the range of 33.5-202.4nm and decreased with increase of polymerization degree of emulsifiers. ML series of PGE had much higher performance to produce smallerparticle size nanodispersions. During storage at 4°C in dark, the physical stability shown that most of PGEstabilized β-carotene nanodispersions were stable in particle size except for that stabilized by MO310. But the chemical property was unstable. Results shown β-carotene losses was found in all of PGE-stabilized nanodispersions, however, β-carotene in ML-series stabilized nanodispersions became much chemically stable than MO series. In term of results, ML750 was selected as the best performed emulsifier to investigated the effect of emulsifier concentration and β-carotene concentration in β-carotene nanoparticle prepared. It was observed increasing the β-carotene concentration significantly increased (P\0.05) the mean particle diameter. Opposite, the emulsifier concentration was relative to the particle size. It suggested these two factors effected the β-carotene nanodispersions preparation significantly.