Influence factors of starch nanoparticles formation and their application in Pickering emulsion

Abstract

The native corn starch and corn amylose were used to prepared starch nanoparticles through two kinds of nanoprecipitation methods. The mainly property of these starch nanoparticles was the crystalline property, at the same time, the particle size, morphology, FT-IR spectra and contact angle of the starch nanoparticles were also investigated. Results showed that the mean size values of native corn starch nanoparticles were smaller than that of corn amylose nanoparticles prepared by the two methods. The nanoprecipitation methods had no significant difference on crystalline structure for all the starch nanoparticles, while the corn amylose nanoparticles prepared by dropping ethanol into the amylose paste had a higher crystallinity of 52.49%, and the water contact angle of which increased to 38.72° than that of corn amylose. Pickering emulsions stabilized by the above amylose nanoparticles showed a more concentrated particle size distribution and the nanoparticles could be well dispersed on the surface of the oil droplets. The results of this study demonstrated that corn amylose nanoparticles prepared by dropping ethanol into the amylose paste had a potential application in stabilizing Pickering emulsions.