Browsing by Author "Firdous, Karim"

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    Leveraging Solubility of Engineered Polysaccharides for Pickering and High Internal Phase Emulsions
    (2025-01-29) Firdous, Karim; Trifkovic, Milana; Bryant, Steven; Husein, Maen; Giovanni, Natale
    Emulsion design using sustainable materials remains a key area of interest in our efforts to move away from the use of inorganic molecules or surfactants that pose environmental risks. Polysaccharide-based stabilizers offer us a route towards sustainable emulsion design. However, their functional performance as emulsion stabilizers is limited and either surface modification or complexation with other molecules is required to enhance their interfacial affinity. In this thesis we demonstrate the use of enzymatically polymerized α-1,3-glucan (NG) and quaternized α-1,3-glucan (QG) for Pickering emulsion stabilization. Analyzing the microstructure and flow behaviour of generated emulsions and dispersions we investigate the network strength and the underlaying mechanisms governing the stability of emulsions. A new strategy to enhance emulsifying performance of polysaccharides that eliminates physiochemical modification and instead utilizes the solubility of polysaccharides with respect to pH to increase effective surface area is presented. The technique resulting in significant microstructural and rheological improvements over “as received” polysaccharide was successfully applied onto two physiochemically different polysaccharides i.e. α-1,3-glucan and β-1,4-chitosan demonstrating the versatility of the approach. Highly stable, gel-like high internal phase emulsions (HIPEs) using single stabilizer (QG) were generated using s single step homogenization approach. It was shown that QG had ability to reduce interfacial tension and provide electrostatic repulsion between droplets to provide stability owing to their permanent surface charge.