Colin Camille, Akpo Emma, Perrin Aurélie, Cornu David, Cambedouzou Julien
IEM, University Montpellier, ENSCM, CNRS, F-34095 Montpellier, France.
Molecules. 2024 May 26;29(11):2515. doi: 10.3390/molecules29112515.
This review aims to gather the current state of the art on the encapsulation methods using alginate as the main polymeric material in order to produce hydrogels ranging from the microscopic to macroscopic sizes. The use of alginates as an encapsulation material is of growing interest, as it is fully bio-based, bio-compatible and bio-degradable. The field of application of alginate encapsulation is also extremely broad, and there is no doubt it will become even broader in the near future considering the societal demand for sustainable materials in technological applications. In this review, alginate's main properties and gelification mechanisms, as well as some factors influencing this mechanism, such as the nature of the reticulation cations, are first investigated. Then, the capacity of alginate gels to release matter in a controlled way, from small molecules to micrometric compounds, is reported and discussed. The existing techniques used to produce alginates beads, from the laboratory scale to the industrial one, are further described, with a consideration of the pros and cons with each techniques. Finally, two examples of applications of alginate materials are highlighted as representative case studies.
本综述旨在收集以藻酸盐作为主要聚合材料的包封方法的当前技术水平，以制备从微观到宏观尺寸的水凝胶。藻酸盐作为包封材料的应用越来越受到关注，因为它完全基于生物、具有生物相容性且可生物降解。藻酸盐包封的应用领域也极其广泛，考虑到社会对技术应用中可持续材料的需求，毫无疑问在不久的将来其应用领域将变得更加广泛。在本综述中，首先研究了藻酸盐的主要性质和凝胶化机制，以及一些影响该机制的因素，如网状阳离子的性质。然后，报告并讨论了藻酸盐凝胶以可控方式从小分子到微米级化合物释放物质的能力。进一步描述了从实验室规模到工业规模生产藻酸盐珠粒的现有技术，并考虑了每种技术的优缺点。最后，重点介绍了藻酸盐材料应用的两个实例作为代表性案例研究。
