As shown in Table 2, the particle size of the formulation 1
(302.7 nm) was significantly smaller than that of the formulation 2
(335.3 nm).
Coincidently, the PDI, depicting the distribution of
particle size, followed the same trend with particle size, indicating
that the particles in formulation 1 were much more homogeneously
and narrowly distributed than in formulation 2.
However,
the zeta potentials of the two formulations were about 38 mV and
did not show significant difference.
These results were in good
agreement with a previous study on the NaCas/pectin nanocomplex
for encapsulation of hydrophobic nutrient, showing that
the size and PDI of the nanocomplex particles increased significantly
with the increase of the polymer concentrations (Luo et al.,
2015).
Our results revealed that the as-designed formulations
were well capable to simultaneously encapsulate both hydrophilic
and hydrophobic nutrients.