Bacterial cellulose as a stabilizer for oil-in-water emulsions

Abstract

Cellulose is the most abundant biopolymer on earth, being plant sources the most significant. This material has been showing increasing applications in many fields: biomedicine, food, cosmetics, electronics, composite materials, among others. Cellulose from bacterial sources is a prominent alternative to the already marketed celluloses, being more pure, crystalline, having nanoscale fibres and excellent mechanical properties. One of the many uses of cellulose, in its various forms, is the stabilization of heterogeneous systems more specifically, the stabilization of oil-in-water emulsions. In this work, bacterial celluloses potential as a stabilizer for Pickering emulsions was assessed. A model system of an isohexadecane-inwater emulsion was studied in detail. A dry bacterial cellulose formulation was able to lower the interfacial tension between the immiscible phases. Emulsions prepared with this formulation showed good stability over time and desired rheological behavior.