A Practical Guide to Microparticle Fabrication: A Comprehensive Illustrated and Updated Review

Background: The domain of microencapsulation technology is considered to be at the level of an advanced scientific discipline that includes the fields of materials science, pharmaceutical engineering, and food technology in the formulation of very specific matrices of polymeric or lipid nature. Method: In this review, a comprehensive analysis of sixteen different techniques of microparticles preparation has been presented: Solvent Evaporation, Solvent Extraction, Coacervation, Spray Drying, Spray Congealing, Ionic Gelation, Interfacial Polymerization, Air Suspension, Pan Coating, In-situ Polymerization, Supercritical Fluid Technology, Electrospraying, Microfluidics, Sol-Gel Process, Hot Melt Encapsulation, and Salting Out. Each technique has been explained by describing the basic physical and chemical phenomena that govern the process of microparticles formation. Results: The review has been presented with a critical analysis of the operating parameters, along with the core and shell material, as well as the applications of the technique, which are of interest in the field of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food, and medicine. Conclusion: The types of drugs that are best suited for the particular technique, as per their physical and chemical properties, i.e., solubility in water, lipid solubility, acid–base properties, as well as their thermoreactive properties, have been discussed in the review. The possibility of scaling up the technique from the laboratory scale to the industrial scale has been evaluated by searching the patent database, as well as the grant status of the patents, presented in the review. The prospective industrial applications of the technique, as well as the current limitations that restrict the scaling up of the laboratory-scale protocol, have been discussed in the review.