Carotenoid Pigments Encapsulation: Fundamentals, Techniques and Recent Trends

Supercritical fluids have become an attractive alternative due to environmentally friendly solvents. The methods that use supercritical fluids can be conveniently used for various applications such as extraction, reactions, particle formation and encapsulation. For encapsulation purposes, the processing conditions given by supercritical technology have important advantages over other methods that include harsh treatments with regard to pH, temperature, light, the use of organic solvents, etc. Unstable functional pigments such as carotenoids extracted from natural sources have been encapsulated to overcome instability problem. Thus, the most used techniques applicable to this intention are described and discussed in this review as well the recent advances and recent trends in this topic that involves the use of supercritical fluids.