Fabrication, characterization and biodegradability of oil–in–water pickering emulsions stabilized by cellulose nanocrystals

Authors

Elena Udoratina¹ , Petr Sitnikov¹ , Philip Legki¹ , Julia Druz¹ , Nikita Ushakov¹ , Michael Torlopov¹

1. Institute of Chemistry of Komi Science Centre of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Conference / event

Asian Symposium on Advanced Materials (ASAM-8), July 2023 (Novosibirsk, Russian Federation)

Poster summary

This study has investigated the influence of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) with native and partially acetylated surface on the formation, stability, rheology and biodegradability of the Pickering emulsion in a crude oil/water (co/w) system. In all investigated systems it was observed that the CNC concentrations of 7 mg/mL led to the emulsions showing stability over time. The increase in concentration of background electrolyte (NaCl) leads to the droplets of emulsions becoming smaller. It was demonstrated that the rheology of co/w emulsions stabilized by CNC depends to a large extent on colloid-chemical properties of nanocellulose particles. Calculations and experimental methods were used to study the changes in the acid-base properties of CNC on the surface of emulsion droplets. The formation of Pickering emulsions leads to the oxidation of oil by Rhodococcus egvi in aerobic conditions becoming more effective, provided that the environment includes mineral salts of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus.

Keywords

Pickering emulsion, Nanoparticles cellulose nanocrystals, Oil biodegradation

Research areas

Chemistry, Nanoengineering, Environmental Sciences

References

1. I. Kalashnikova et al. New Pickering emulsions stabilized by bacterial cellulose nanocrystals, Langmuir 27 (12) (2011) 7471–7479. doi: 10.1021/la200971f
2. I. Kalashnikova et al. Cellulosic nanorods of various aspect ratios for oil in water Pickering emulsions, Soft. Matter, 9 (3) (2013) 952–959. doi: 10.1039/C2SM26472B
3. S. Parajuli et al.. Surface properties of cellulose nanocrystal stabilized crude oil emulsions and their effect on petroleum biodegradation, Colloids Surfaces A Physicochem. Eng. Asp, 596 (2020)124705. doi: 10.1016/j.colsurfa.2020.124705

Funding

1. Russian Science Foundation (No. 22-23-00271)

Supplemental files

No data provided

Additional information

Competing interests

No competing interests were disclosed.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and / or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2023 Udoratina et al. This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.