Solid-stabilized emulsion formation using stearoyl lactylate coated iron oxide nanoparticles

Iron oxide nanoparticles can exhibit highly tunable physicochemical properties that are extremely important in applications such as catalysis, biomedicine and environmental remediation. The small size of iron oxide nanoparticles can be used to stabilize oil-in-water Pickering emulsions due to their high energy of adsorption at the interface of oil droplets in water. The objective of this work is to investigate the effect of the primary particle characteristics and stabilizing agent chemistry on the stability of oil-in-water Pickering emulsions. Iron oxide nanoparticles were synthesized by the co-precipitation method using stoichiometric amounts of Fe²⁺ and Fe³⁺ salts. Sodium stearoyl lactylate (SSL), a Food and Drug Administration approved food additive, was used to functionalize the iron oxide nanoparticles. SSL is useful in the generation of fat-in-water emulsions due to its high hydrophilic–lipophilic balance and its bilayer-forming capacity. Generation of a monolayer or a bilayer coating on the nanoparticles was controlled through systematic changes in reagent concentrations. The coated particles were then characterized using various analytical techniques to determine their size, their crystal structure and surface functionalization. The capacity of these bilayer coated nanoparticles to stabilize oil-in-water emulsions under various salt concentrations and pH values was also systematically determined using various characterization techniques. This study successfully demonstrated the ability to synthesize iron oxide nanoparticles (20–40 nm) coated with SSL in order to generate stable Pickering emulsions that were pH-responsive and resistant to significant destabilization in a saline environment, thereby lending themselves to applications in advanced oil spill recovery and remediation.