Quinoa starch granules as stabilizing particles for production of Pickering emulsions

Intact starch granules isolated from quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) were used to stabilize emulsion drops in so-called Pickering emulsions. Miglyol 812 was used as dispersed phase and a phosphate buffer (pH7) with different salt (NaCl) concentrations was used as the continuous phase. The starch granules were hydrophobically modified to different degrees by octenyl succinic anhydride (OSA) or by dry heat treatment at 120 °C in order to study the effect on the resulting emulsion drop size. The degree of OSA-modification had a low to moderate impact on drop size. The highest level of modification (4.66%) showed the largest mean drop size, and lowest amount of free starch, which could be an effect of a higher degree of aggregation of the starch granules and, thereby, also the emulsion drops stabilized by them. The heat treated starch granules had a poor stabilizing ability and only the starch heated for the longest time (150 min at 120 °C) had a better emulsifying capacity than the un-modified native starch granules. The effect of salt concentration was rather limited. However, an increased concentration of salt slightly increased the mean drop size and the elastic modulus.