Effect of hydrophilicity of lignin particles on emulsifying properties of Pickering emulsion

Abstract

To promote the application of lignin in Pickering emulsions, the influences of six lignin particles with different hydrophobicity on the emulsifying and stabilizing performances for oil phases with different polarity to form oil in water Pickering emulsions were investigated. The results showed that the best emulsification performance was achieved when the three-phase (oil–water–lignin particle) contact angle was close to 90°. Alkyl-bridged lignin particles with stronger hydrophobicity have a better emulsification effect on cyclohexane with less polarity, while carboxymethylated lignin particles with stronger hydrophilicity have better emulsification effect on n-heptanol with higher polarity. Furthermore, the stability of Pickering emulsions can be improved by appropriately increasing the surface charge and decreasing the particular size of the lignin particles.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Lignin particles
• Pickering emulsion
• emulsification performance

Disclosure statement

We all declared that they have no conflict of interest to this work.

We declare that we do not have any commercial or associative interest that represents a conflict of interest in connection with work submitted.

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge the financial support of the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2021YFC2102800), National Natural Science Foundation of China (21878112), Key Technologies R&D Program of Guangdong Province (2023B0202080002), and Guangdong Provincial Special Fund for Modern Agriculture Industry Technology Innovation Teams (2019KJ140).