Antioxidant and Antimicrobial Agents from Avocado (Persea americana) Seed Extract Encapsulated in Gum Arabic through Spray Drying Method

Abstract

In this work, the objective is to utilize avocado seed extract as a cheap alternative source of active compounds and was successfully encapsulated using gum arabic by spray drying as an antioxidant and antimicrobial agent. First, the active compounds were extracted from avocado seed using solvent n-hexane and followed by solvent separation using rotary vacuum evaporator. Next, gum arabic as the encapsulation agent was added to avocado seed extract to form an emulsion, then spray-dried with drying air at a temperature of 140 °C. The mass ratio of avocado seed was varied at extract: gum arabic of 5:5, 5:10, 5:15, and 5:20. Then, the particle morphology, yield, moisture content, encapsulation efficiency, loading capacity, chemical groups, antioxidant activity, and antibacterial ability were analyzed to investigate the performance of the encapsulation particles. Among the ranges studied, the extract–gum arabic with a mass ratio of 5:10 exhibited the best properties of yield powder, loading capacity, and encapsulation efficiency at 49.78%, 3.43%, and 7.33%, respectively. The encapsulated particles have smooth surface, crackless, lower indentation, and a single-core encapsulation structure with an average diameter of 4.60 μm. Besides, the stability of antioxidant activity decreased by 2.36%, from 94.82% to 92.46% for four weeks of storage. They also performed antimicrobial activity against E. coli and S. aureus, which were maintained after seven days. Meanwhile for avocado seed extract only, the unencapsulated stability of antioxidant activity has continually decrease from 91.58% to 84.05% and performed no antimicrobial activity against E. coli after seven days.