Preparation of Thermosensitive Microcapsules Containing Water Soluble Powder by Melting Dispersion Cooling Method

It was tried to prepare the thermosensitive microcapsules containing the water soluble solid powder by the melting dispersion cooling method and to establish the optimum preparation conditions. As a model water soluble solid powder, sodium hydrogen carbonate was adopted in order to generate carbon dioxide gas and as a thermosensitive shell material, olefin resin with the melting point of ca. 40°C was used. In the experiment, the concentration of olefin resin in the shell material solution was mainly changed together with the concentrations of the oil soluble surfactant species and the α-tocopherol as a modifier of shell. Addition of α-tocopherol into the shell material solution could prevent the core from breaking away during the microencapsulation process and result in the higher microencapsulation efficiency, because the dispersion stability of solid powder in the shell material solution could be increased due to the increase in affinity between the shell material solution and solid powder. Also, the microencapsulation efficiency increased with the concentration of olefin resin, became maximum at 50 wt% and then, decreased. The microcapsules were found to begin melting at 36°C and to generate carbon dioxide gas.