Extrusion 3D printing of nutraceutical oral dosage forms formulated with oleogels and phytosterols mixtures

Abstract

Within the concept of personalized nutrition arises the demand for ?tailor-made? technological solutions that combine nutrients and functional compounds. In this regard, 3D printing emerges as a group of technologies capable of producing customized formulas with the desired shape, dimension, and microstructure. The extrusion-based 3D printing (E3DP) method is the most widely adopted for obtention of foods and pharmaceutical forms. The aim of this work was to evaluate the production of nutraceutical solid forms by E3DP using mixtures of monoglycerides (MG) oleogels and phytosterols (PS) as printing materials. To this purpose, molten oleogels were prepared using MG (10%wt or 20%wt) and high oleic sunflower oil. Printing materials were obtained adding variable amounts of PS to oleogels, between 0.2 and 0.5wt PS/wt oleogel. An ad-hoc extrusion 3D printer composed of a heated syringe and a cooling build platform was used. The hot mixtures were introduced into the syringe and the solid forms were printed under previously defined parameter setting. Oscillatory temperature sweep tests were carried out to determine the mixtures gel point in order to select appropriate printing temperatures. Mechanical properties of printed solid forms were obtained by compression test.The mixtures gelation temperature increased with the increase of PS content. Values ranged between 70.3 and 91.1 °C and 55.3 and 95.2°C for oleogels formulated with 10%wt and 20%wt of MG, respectively. Furthermore, it was found that solid forms were successfully printed when using mixtures containing a maximum of 0.3wt PS/wt oleogel and 0.4wt PS/wt oleogel for oleogels formulated with 10%wt and 20%wt of MG, respectively. All these solid forms were structurally stable, with hardness values that increased with the rise in PS and MG content. The highest value of hardness was 12.55 N, obtained for the mixture formulated with 0.4wt PS/wt oleogel and 20%wt of MG.