Preparation and characterization of wormwood-oil-contained microcapsules

In recent years, wormwood has been successfully applied in various fields, such as flavouring agent, plant dye, insect repellent and medical product. Wormwood oil encapsulated microcapsules with continuous release behaviours would be further applied in the health care textiles. Here, wormwood oil encapsulated microcapsules with different core-wall materials ratios (gelatine: gum arabic: wormwood oil = 1:1:1, 1:1:2, 1:1:3, 1:1:4) were fabricated. The morphology and physicochemical properties of microcapsules were explored by scanning electron microscopy, ultrasonic wave particle size analysis, thermo gravimetric analysis and so on. The size analysis results indicated that the microcapsule diameter could be controlled less than 1 um. In vitro testing showed that the microcapsules were capable of extending the releasing period to over 6 days. The thermo gravimetric analysis proved that microcapsules had superior thermal stability compared with pure wormwood oil, showing broad application prospects in functional health care textile.