TITLE:
Microencapsulation of Banana Passion Fruit (Passiflora tripartita Var. Mollissima): A New Alternative as a Natural Additive as Antioxidant
AUTHORS:
Maritza Gil, Ana Restrepo, Leonidas Millán, Luz Alzate, Benjamín Rojano
KEYWORDS:
Passiflora tripartite; ABTS; Maltodextrin; Microencapsulation; Phenolic Compound
JOURNAL NAME:
Food and Nutrition Sciences,
Vol.5 No.8,
March
26,
2014
ABSTRACT: Banana passion
fruit (P. tripartita var. Mollissima)
is one of the most promising tropical fruits giving its antioxidant activity (AOA) to replace synthetic additives. Despite this
property, there are no studies about the metabolites responsible for its
biological function or proposals for the application of technologies, such as
microencapsulation by spray drying, to improve its properties and ease its
incorporation in several food matrices. The aim of this study is to
microencapsulate the pulp of banana passion fruit with several mixtures of
encapsulants and identify which one of these mixtures is better to preserve its
AOA. The antioxidant activity values for the banana passion fruit pulp were as
follows: DPPH: 6630.2 ± 91 μMtrolox/100g; ABTS: 18764.3 ± 270.4 μMtrolox/100g;
FRAP: 1703.6± 938.2 mgAA/100g, ORAC: 8105.4 ± 424.2 μmol TEAC/100g of sample;
Total phenols: 8862.2 ± 451.4 gallic ac. mg/100g. The concentrations of the
bioactive compounds expressed in mg of gallic acid per 100 g of the pulp on a
dry base were 13.9 ± 0.004; 5.9 ± 0.001 and 126.3 ± 0.004 for caffeic,
p-coumaric and ferulic acids, respectively. The best shelf-life followed by
ABTS in eight assays was between 28.8 and 31.5 weeks using maltodextrin
and modified starch, MD:MS (1/4:3/4) and MD:MS (0:1), respectively. In conclusion, ABTS is the best method to
measure the AOA in banana passion fruit because it correlated with the phenolic
compounds better than DPPH and FRAP methods. Additionally, two options were
found to protect the AOA and to extent the shelf-life of the passion fruit by spray-drying,
with mixtures of encapsulants widely used in the food industry.