Chemical and physical stability of citral and limonene in sodium dodecyl sulfate-chitosan and gum arabic-stabilized oil-in-water emulsions.

Citral and limonene are the major flavor components of citrus oils. Both of these compounds can undergo chemical degradation leading to loss of flavor and the formation of undesirable off-flavors. Engineering the interface of emulsion droplets with emulsifiers that inhibit chemical reactions could provide a novel technique to stabilize citral and limonene. At present, emulsified flavor oils are usually stabilized by gum arabic (GA), which is a naturally occurring polysaccharide-protein complex. The objective of this study was to examine if citral and limonene were more stable in emulsions stabilized with a sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-chitosan complex than GA. Citral degraded less in GA-stabilized than in SDS-chitosan-stabilized emulsions at pH 3.0. However, SDS-chitosan-stabilized emulsions were more effective at retarding the formation of the citral oxidation product, p-cymene, than GA-stabilized emulsions. Limonene degradation and the formation of limonene oxidation products, limonene oxide and carvone, were lower in the SDS-chitosan- than GA-stabilized emulsions at pH 3.0. The ability of an SDS-chitosan multilayer emulsifier system to inhibit the oxidative deterioration of citral and limonene could be due to the formation of a cationic and thick emulsion droplet interface that could repel prooxidative metals, thus decreasing prooxidant-lipid interactions.