Determination of the optimum composition to produce minimum particle size of β-carotene microencapsulated in acid hydrolyzed starch-chitosan/TPP (tripolyphosphate) matrices using Taguchi method

In this study, the combined factors of acid hydrolyzed starch-to-chitosan weight ratio (weight ratio SC), β-carotene addition level, and tripolyphosphate ion (TPP) addition level were investigated to produce minimum particles size of β-carotene microencapsulated in acid hydrolyzed starch-chitosan/TPP matrices using a precipitation method. For this purpose, the design of experiment Taguchi has been applied. The results showed that the optimum composition to produce the smallest particle size was obtained at the weight ratio SC 1:1, β-carotene addition level 10 mg and TPP addition level 600 mg. The three factors above had significant influences on the resulting particle size with rank from the largest to the smallest was weight ratio SC, TPP addition level, and β-carotene addition level respectively. The results of the confirmation test were in line with the calculation from the full factorial design of experiment. These confirmed that the Taguchi method could be a useful tool to determine the optimum composition in producing an optimum particle size of microencapsulation product using limited data.