Chitosan and crosslinked chitosan nanoparticles: Synthesis, characterization and their role as Pickering emulsifiers

Ribeiro, Elisa Franco [UNESP]; de Barros-Alexandrino, Taís Téo; Assis, Odilio Benedito Garrido; Junior, Américo Cruz; Quiles, Amparo; Hernando, Isabel; Nicoletti, Vânia Regina [UNESP]

Chitosan and crosslinked chitosan nanoparticles: Synthesis, characterization and their role as Pickering emulsifiers

Data

2020-12-15

Autores

Ribeiro, Elisa Franco

de Barros-Alexandrino, Taís Téo

Assis, Odilio Benedito Garrido

Junior, Américo Cruz

Quiles, Amparo

Hernando, Isabel

Nicoletti, Vânia Regina

Tipo

Artigo

Resumo

Chitosan has been modified in order to produce nanoparticles with promising characteristics in diverse food applications, e.g. Pickering emulsions. Chitosan deprotonation and ionic crosslinking with tripolyphosphate were assessed in this work. Chitosan nanoparticles produced by these two methods were characterized according to surface charge, particle size distribution, chemical structure, wettability and microstructure imaging. The nanoparticles’ performance in the formation of oil-in-water Pickering emulsions was studied by physicochemical and rheological assays. Chitosan nanoparticles produced by amino deprotonation were larger and resulted in emulsions with larger oil droplets, with rheological behavior of the emulsions being greatly affected by increasing concentration of chitosan, which formed a network structure in the continuous phase. On the contrary, the tripolyphosphate-crosslinked chitosan nanoparticles were smaller and produced emulsions with smaller droplets, which remained less viscous even when chitosan concentration was increased and showed evidences of Pickering stabilization when analyzed by microscopy techniques.