Preparation and characterization of single and dual propylene oxide and octenyl succinic anhydride modified starch carriers for the microencapsulation of essential oils.

Hydroxypropylation with propylene oxide followed by esterification with octenyl succinic anhydride (OSA) was used to produce modified potato starch derivatives suitable for the encapsulation of essential oils. Caraway essential oil (EO) was encapsulated by spray-drying into enzymatically hydrolyzed dual/single modified and native starches. The EO microencapsulation efficiency in different modified starches, the retention of volatile aroma compounds, the emulsion particle size and the microstructure of the spray-dried encapsulated powdered products, as well as the compositional aroma changes taking place during the processing and storage for up to 8 months have been estimated. The increase of OSA content from 0.97 to 2.52% in the P-native structure and from 0.91% to 2.66% in P-HP resulted in the significant increase in the encapsulating capacity, evaluated as a percentage of the total EO retained, from 61.6 to 88.0% and 73.8% to 84.0%, respectively. However, the compositional changes of the microencapsulated caraway EO constituents were not remarkable. Additionally, the effect of pure and encapsulated caraway EO products on the oxidative stability of commercial rapeseed oil and mayonnaise was evaluated using the instrumental Oxipres method and it was shown that they were more effective in emulsion type products by the up to 1.8-fold increase in the oxidative stability of mayonnaise.