Highly stable protein-chitosan complex coacervation crosslinked microcapsule and preparation method thereof

The present invention provides a highly stable protein-chitosan complex coacervation crosslinked microcapsule and a preparation method thereof. The method is as below: first mixing a core material with a protein solution, conducting high-speed dispersion to form an O/W type emulsion, then adding a chitosan solution, adjusting the pH value, conducting a coacervation reaction on the protein and chitosan through electrostatic interaction to form a complex coacervation phase settled surrounding the core material emulsion droplets to obtain microcapsules, collecting the microcapsules by centrifugation, lyophilizing to obtain a microcapsule powder, then mixing the microcapsule powder with reducing sugar, then separating the protein from reducing sugar by the chitosan, and heating to trigger Maillard reaction of chitosan respectively with reducing sugar and protein, so as to initiate crosslinking to improve the stability of the microcapsules. The method of the present invention is simple, safe, efficient and applicable to mass production, and can be widely used in embedding of the core materials with good thermal stability. The present invention has important significance to the development of highly stable protein-chitosan complex coacervation crosslinking microcapsule system and promotion of coacervation microencapsulation technology in practical application in the food industry.