Oil-in-water Pickering emulsions via microfluidization with cellulose nanocrystals: 1. Formation and stability

By Long Bai, Shanshan Lv, W. Xiang, Siqi Huan, D. McClements, Orlando J. Rojas. Food Hydrocolloids, 2019

247 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Oil-in-water Pickering emulsions were successfully prepared via high-energy microfluidization using cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) as interfacial stabilizers. The influence of microfluidization pressure, CNC concentration, and oil type on droplet size and emulsion stability was determined. Under optimized homogenization conditions, CNC formed and stabilized emulsions based on corn, fish, sunflower, flax, orange, and MCT oils. The droplet size decreased with increasing microfluidization pressure from 9 to 17 kpsi, but then increased slightly at 19 kpsi. The creaming stability of the emulsions increased with CNC concentration, which was mainly attributed to the decrease in droplet size (mean particle diameter  ≤ 100 mM; temperature from 30 to 90 °C. Droplet flocculation was, however, observed under more acidic conditions (pH 2) and at high ionic strength (200–500 mM NaCl), owing to electrostatic screening. Our results indicate that microfluidization is an effective method for forming CNC-stabilized Pickering emulsions suitable for utilization in the food industry.

Subfields: Biomaterials, Materials Chemistry, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a155f5991b0ac32663af0a10641066dbee0b1825