According to Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council (INIC), Iranian researchers from Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, in a laboratorial research, replaced harmful artificial antioxidant additives with natural compounds extracted from olive tree leaf in edible oils.
The effectiveness of antioxidant compounds increases in this research due to the loading of olive tree leaf extract inside the designed nanocapsules. As a result, the quality of the edible oil improves.
The main objective of the research was to investigate the nano-microencapsulation of olive tree leaf extract and its application in soya oil. Bi-functional nanoemulsions have been used as nanocapsules in this research.
Based on the experiments, the natural antioxidant can be very good replacements for the common synthetic antioxidants. Its properties will be conserved better through nano-microencapsulation method. Increasing the durability of foodstuff, controlled release, increasing the production efficiency, decreasing the waste, creating value added in foodstuff, production of ultra-useful products, and the possibility of innovation and variety in the production of foodstuff are among the other advantages of nano-microencapsulation method.
Results of the research have applications in pharmaceutics and production of cosmetics as well as foodstuff industry. The pilot production of the product is currently being carried out in Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources Incubator.
In this research, olive tree leaves were firstly prepared, and phenolic compounds were extracted from them. Then, nano-microencapsulation process was carried out by producing various types of nanoemulsions. These compounds were added to the edible oil after studying qualitative properties of nanocapsules, and antioxidant and qualitative properties of the oil were finally investigated.
Results of the research have been published in Food Chemistry, vol. 190, 2016, pp. 513-519.
MS/PR