Coacervation commercial application

The earliest commercial application of coacervation was for the development of carbonless carbon copy paper by the National Cash Register Company in the late 1950s. More recently, the field of polymer coacervation has developed steadily so that a more refined and complete classification of coacervation systems can be proposed here (Table 1). Other classification schemes and related principles of coacervation for microencapsulation are available in the literature with illustrated examples. " ... 

The concept of packaging microscopic quantities of materials within microspheres dates back to the 1930s and the work of Bungenberg de Jong and coworkers on the entrapment of substances within coacervates. The first commercial application of encapsulation was by the National Cash Register Company for the manufacture of carbonless copying paper. The technology... 

Polymer coacervation is one of the earliest microencapsulation techniques. The first commercial application of encapsulation with coacervation was to the development of carbonless copy paper by the National Cash Register Company, which resulted from patents by Barrett K. Green and Lowell Schleicher in the late 1950s. Since then, coacervation has been used for various applications. 

Since the first commercial application to carbonless copy paper in the 1950s, microencapsulation with coacervation technology has been successfully applied to many other areas, such as food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, biotechnology, and agrochemicals. The capsules provide such functions as controlled release, taste masking, improved heat and oxidative stability, reduced volatility/ flammability/toxicity, separation of reactive incompatibles, improved shelf-life, conversion of liquids to solids, and improved flowability as well as material handling. Among various coacervation processes, complex coacervation is most prevalent. 

In spite of these limitations, the development of microcapsules by complex coacervation remains a viable area of study today from both a fundamental understanding and a commercial application point of view. Polymers derived from plant or milk that are adaptable to the complex coacervation encapsulation protocols have been used to replace gelatin isolated from animals. Interest in capsules produced by complex coacervation for food-related applications remains high because a variety of GRAS polymers can be used to produce commercially viable capsules accepted by the food industry. New technically and commercially viable polymers are being developed to meet the increasing demand from various applications and to fulfill the regulatory requirements. 

In summary, the feasibility of coacervation has been shown on industrial scale, although it is probably fair to say that this technology is only scarcely used in pharmaceutical industry. Primarily for its physicochemical complexity and limitations with respect to residuals or processing components, efforts have been made to replace the coacervation technique by simpler technologies. To what extend new applications of coacervation technologyin pharmaceutical industry will be successfully commercialized will largely depend on the market needs and patient benefits of these new... 

Gelatin coacervates have received the most attention both academically and commercially. However, many other aqueous and nonaqueous systems have been studied for various applications, such as encapsulation. Coacervation equilibrium has been applied to fractionation of polymers. ... 

---