A Delivery System That Fizzes and Foams
For the past 18 months, we’ve been working collaboratively with both a formulator and an application engineering company to co-develop an exciting new instant beverage product – one that fizzes and foams to provide a sustained moisturizing effect in the mouth, and acts as a delivery system for Ascorbic Acid, Potassium Chloride and other key nutrients.
This Tingle Fizz solution combines several effervescent components in their dry powder forms; the major challenge was how to keep them separated to prevent pre-reaction and allow for fizzing and foaming at just the right time. Key criteria for the project included:
- Solubility – the microencapsulates needed to be soluble in cold water within a period of 1-2 minutes;
- Stability – because the effervescent components would be stored as dry powders, a reasonable shelf life under ambient conditions was required;
- Clarity – ideally, we needed to avoid turbidity issues since nobody wants to drink a cloudy beverage;
- Particle size – the ideal particle size for the microencapsulates had to be between 50 and 100 microns;
Maxx developed several prototypes for evaluation based on these parameters. In return, we received these stellar results:
- According to the formulator, the performance of the effervescent fizz/foam alone – in an aqueous solution at room temperature – was great; fizzing and foaming occurred and dissolved within 10 seconds.
- Once incorporated into the customer’s matrix system, which involved use of anhydrous ethanol during processing, one particular prototype performed very well and was not pre-activated by trace amounts of moisture. The product remained stable for 14-17 days, which was better than expected.
- Lastly, there were no turbidity issues with any of the prototypes – just quick hydration and high product clarity. And, we were able to deliver a smaller, more uniform particle size than the application required.
So after one final prototype, the formulator reported that we met all the criteria and they were ready to launch their new innovation.