Optimal combination of the encapsulating materials for probiotic microcapsules and its experimental verification (R1) Original Research Article

The purpose of this research is to develop an optimal composition model for the encapsulating materials of probiotic microcapsules after one-week storage, with prebiotics and alginate as the encapsulating materials in given ranges of concentrations. The procedure includes three phases: building the response surface models, finding the optimal composition model with global optimization, and verifying the optimal model. The response surface method and the sequential quadratic programming (SQP) technique were employed to determine the optimal ratio and evaluate the tolerance of the microencapsulated probiotics to gastric conditions. Results indicated that the optimized microcapsules could increase the viability of probiotic bacteria under the simulated gastric fluid test (SGFT). The optimal combination of encapsulating materials for the probiotic microcapsules was found to be 3% sodium alginate blended with 1% peptides, 3% fructooligosaccharides (FOS), and 0% isomaltooligosaccharides (IMO). Verification experiments confirmed the SQP-based prediction with no apparent significant differences (P > 0.05).