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Comparison of different technologies for alginate beads production

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Abstract

This paper describes the results of the round robin experiment “Bead production technologies” carried out during the COST 840 action “Bioencapsulation Innovation and Technologies” within the 5th Framework Program of the European Community. In this round robin experiment, calcium alginate hydrogel beads with the diameter of (800 ± 100) μm were produced by the most common bead production technologies using 0.5–4 mass % sodium alginate solutions as starting material. Dynamic viscosity of the alginate solutions ranged from less than 50 mPa s up to more than 10000 mPa s. With the coaxial air-flow and electrostatic enhanced dropping technologies as well as with the JetCutter technology in the soft-landing mode, beads were produced from all alginate solutions, whereas the vibration technology was not capable to process the high-viscosity 3 % and 4 % alginate solutions. Spherical beads were generated by the electrostatic and the JetCutter technologies. Slightly deformed beads were obtained from high-viscosity alginate solutions using the coaxial airflow and from the 0.5 % and 2 % alginate solutions using the vibration technology. The rate of bead production using the JetCutter was about 10 times higher than with the vibration technology and more than 10000 times higher than with the coaxial air-flow and electrostatic technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Agricultural Technology and Biosystems Engineering, Johan Heinrich von Thunen-Insitute (vTI), Bundesallee 50, 38116, Braunschweig, Germany

    Ulf Prüsse & Klaus-Dieter Vorlop

  2. Department of Chemistry and Technology of Drugs, University of Perugia, Piazza dell’ Università 1, 06123, Perugia, Italy

    Luca Bilancetti, Claudio Nastruzzi & Azzurra Tosi

  3. Department of Glycobiotechnology, Institute of Chemistry, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, 845 38, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Marek Bučko, Peter Gemeiner & Alica Vikartovská

  4. Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade, Karnegijeva 4, 11001, Belgrade, Serbia

    Branko Bugarski & Verica Manojlovic

  5. Institute of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering, Polish Academy of Sciences, Księcia Trojdena 4, 02-109, Warsaw, Poland

    Jozef Bukowski & Dorota Lewińska

  6. Institute Meurice, Avenue Emile Gryzon 1, B-1070, Brussels, Belgium

    Benjamin Massart

  7. Faculty of Agriculture, University of Belgrade, 6 Nemanjina Str., 11080, Zemun, Serbia

    Viktor Nedovic

  8. ENITIIA, Rue de la Géraudière, 44322, Nantes, France

    Denis Poncelet & Lucien Tobler

  9. geniaLab GmbH, Büchnerstraße 7, 38118, Braunschweig, Germany

    Swen Siebenhaar

Authors
  1. Ulf Prüsse
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  2. Luca Bilancetti
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  3. Marek Bučko
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  4. Branko Bugarski
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  5. Jozef Bukowski
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  6. Peter Gemeiner
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  7. Dorota Lewińska
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  8. Verica Manojlovic
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  9. Benjamin Massart
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  10. Claudio Nastruzzi
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  11. Viktor Nedovic
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  12. Denis Poncelet
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  13. Swen Siebenhaar
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  14. Lucien Tobler
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  15. Azzurra Tosi
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  16. Alica Vikartovská
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  17. Klaus-Dieter Vorlop
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ulf Prüsse.

Additional information

In memory of our colleague Stefan Rosinski

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Prüsse, U., Bilancetti, L., Bučko, M. et al. Comparison of different technologies for alginate beads production. Chem. Pap. 62, 364–374 (2008). https://doi.org/10.2478/s11696-008-0035-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/s11696-008-0035-x

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