Nanoemulsions in foods

To create a technology landscape report on Nanoemulsions in food

• Identify market players with prolific IP activity in the technology area
• Segment the players by the industry they belong to

Note: This report is just a template and gives an indication of what the paid report contains.

Click here for information to purchase the report

With the rapid technological advances, studies in the field of Food processing and packaging have been extended from micro to nano-sized (10 ^-9 m) particles. Food nanotechnology is rapidly emerging with several innovations in food packaging and nutraceuticals. Nano-emulsions are now being increasingly used for encapsulating bio active compounds and act as transport vehicles in probiotic health foods and other functional foods. Furthermore, the so called “smart foods” containing nanotech sensors in the packages are capable of detecting pathogens, toxins and other chemicals, enabling the consumers to detect food spoilage. Ongoing research areas include “interactive foods” like beverages which change flavors and colors, foods that can adjust for a person’s nutritional needs Nanovip.

Encapsulation

Emulsion is a system in which one liquid made of a fine particle is dispersed in another liquid, ex- oil dispersed in water (O/W emulsion). The emulsions are highly unstable and encounter problems like flocculation, creaming and coalescence. Though micro-emulsions have found a vast application in food processing, in recent years nano-emulsions are emerging out with better advantages when compared to micro-emulsions, as described below:

• Size of the particle – 5 to 100 nm
• Thermodynamically stable
• Transparent emulsions- suitable for transparent foodstuffs like beverages
• Continuous self-assembly with hydrophilic and hydrophobic portions to maintain stable emulsion state
• Uncharged particles – no surface coalescence
• Very small size – no sedimentation or creaming
• Increased stability- increased bio availability Kim et al.(2010)

In general, Nano-encapsulation involves the incorporation, absorption or dispersion of bioactive compounds in small vesicles with nano (or submicron) diameters. The incorporated bioactive compounds may be protected against degradation, have improved stability and solubility (e.g., solubilizing a hydrophilic compound in hydrophobic matrices and vice versa) and therefore might increase bioavailability and delivery to cells and tissues. Reducing the size of encapsulates into the nanoscale offers opportunities related to prolonged gastrointestinal retention time caused by bio-adhesive improvements in the mucus covering the intestinal epithelium Bouwmeester et al. (2009)

Depending upon the nature of bioactive compounds, two types of nano-emulsions can be prepared. For water insoluble hydrophobic compounds like certain vitamins, minerals, aroma volatiles, flavor components, antioxidants, carotenoids and lutein, oil-in-water (o/w) emulsion is suitable. For water soluble bioactive compounds like the water soluble vitamins, w/o/w emulsion is used. The compounds are entrapped in the aqueous core of such emulsions. In a w ₁ /o/w ₂ emulsion system, upon consumption the external w ₂ phase will be perceived but the internal w ₁ phase will be shielded from the taste receptors during the time scales of eating. This helps to mask bitter tastes and undesirable flavors of the bioactive compounds Lakkis (2007).

• An indicative list of terms to show how a concept table is generated. View paid report for complete list.
• Concept Table was enriched by searches related to gut biology and probiotics in food from pubmed mesh, relevant patents, scientific articles and various thesauri

IPC / ECLA Class codes

US Class codes

Relevant F- Terms

• An indicative list of various class codes used for the IP search. View paid report for complete list.

Search Strategy with English keywords

Database: Thomson Innovation
Timeline: Query: 01/01/2001 - 27/8/2011

Patent Coverage: US, DWPI, FR, WO, EP, JP,CN, KR, DE, GB

Search Strategy with French keywords

Database: Thomson Innovation
Timeline: Query: 01/01/2001 - 27/8/2011

Patent Coverage: FR, WO, EP

Search Strategy with German keywords

Database: Thomson Innovation
Timeline: Query: 01/01/2001 - 27/8/2011

Search Strategy with F-terms

Database: Thomson Innovation
Timeline: Query: 01/01/2001 - 27/8/2011

Patent Coverage: JP

Final search Results

Click here to download the sample patents analysis sheet

Taxonomy was populated based on the detailed analysis of patents.

• Labels for all the charts below are available in the paid report.

• The following graphs explain the placement of the different assignees in this technology area.

• Geographical distribution of Patents

• Geographical distribution of Assignees

• The graphs given below explain the IP activity in this technology area over the years.

• Patents with the maximum number of forward citations were determined and the graph shows the top 11 patents with corresponding assignees.

Assignees were categorized based on the type of their products viz. Foods,Food additives, Biotech, Pharmaceutical,Chemical and other industries, Research and Educational Institutions etc and their patents have been shown in the Dolcera Interactive Dashboard.

A data preview of the dashboard is shown below:

A chart preview of the dashboard is shown below:

• Some products with respect to this technology area were identified and mapped to the patents from their respective assignees.

S.No	Patent no.	Title	Assignee	Products	Product description by Company	Snapshot
1	US7182950	Nano-sized self-assembled liquid dilutable vehicles	Nutralease Ltd.	Flavors - ex-NSSL mint, NSSL orange Nurtition ingredients - NSSL CoQ-10, NSSL Lycopene, NSSL Lutein, NSSL Beta-carotene, NSSL Omega-3, NSSL Vitamin A, NSSL Vitamin D3, NSSL Vitamin E, NSSL Phytosterols, NSSL Isoflavones	Nutralease Ltd.
2	US7994157	Method for dispersing plant sterol for beverage and a plant sterol-dispersed beverage, of which particle size is nanometer-scale in dispersed beverage	KIP Biotech	Dispersible Plant Sterols (DP Sterols)	KIP Biotech LLC
3	US20090047388	Calcium fortified creamed honey	HONEYCAL	Honeycal® Calcium Fortified, Honey Spread	Global Nutrition, L.L.C.

• Please click here for detailed Patent-Product highlight

Search strategy

Database: Scirus
Timeline: 2000 to 2012
Subject areas: Agricultural and Biological sciences, Chemistry and Chemical engineering, Engineering, Energy and Technology, Environmental sciences, Life sciences

Contact information for purchasing this report:

• Email: info@dolcera.com
• Phone: +1-650-269-7952 , +91-40-2355-3493