Single-Conidium Encapsulation in Oil-in-Water Pickering Emulsions at High Encapsulation Yield

Abstract

This study presents an individual encapsulation of fungal conidia in an oil-in-water Pickering emulsion at a single-conidium encapsulation yield of 44%. The single-conidium encapsulation yield was characterized by analysis of confocal microscopy micrographs. Mineral oil-in-water emulsions stabilized by amine-functionalized titania dioxide (TiO2-NH2 or titania-NH2) particles were prepared. The structure and the stability of the emulsions were investigated at different compositions by confocal microscopy and a LUMiSizer® respectively. The most stable emulsions with a droplet size suitable for single-conidium encapsulation were further studied for their individual encapsulation capabilities. The yields of individual encapsulation in the emulsions; i.e., the number of conidia that were individually encapsulated out of the total number of conidia, were characterized by confocal microscopy assay. This rapid, easy to use approach to single-conidium encapsulation, which generates a significantly high yield with eco-friendly titania-based emulsions, only requires commonly used emulsification and agitation methods.

Individual Coating of Entomopathogenic Nematodes with Titania (TiO2) Nanoparticles Based on Oil-in-Water Pickering Emulsion: A New Formulation for Biopesticides

“…The silanization procedure we have used is well established in the literature. In our previous works, the resulting particles have already shown their ability to serve as Pickering stabilizers for oil-in-water emulsions …”

“…TiO 2 dispersion displayed high hydrophilicity with a contact angle of 0°, while addition of APTES increased the contact angle of particles to 40.2 ± 5.12°. On this basis, we proceeded to prepare formulations using the modified TiO 2 -NH 2 particles in this study and in previous ones …”

“…Pickering emulsions are mixtures of immiscible liquids stabilized by solid colloidal particles assembled at the oil–water interface by a mechanism of partial wetting of the particles by the two liquids. Although Pickering emulsions are well understood, due to their complexity, significant discoveries regarding particle behaviors are still being made. , Examples of recent progress in Pickering emulsions can be seen in the development of superhydrophobic coatings and encapsulation formulations , where particles enable the fabrication of very stable and organized colloidal systems. Chemical pesticides are used to exterminate, repel, or mitigate pests .…”

Encapsulation of anti‐viral active material for plant protection based on inverse Pickering emulsions

“…Encapsulation of active materials or cell encapsulation through Pickering emulsions has been extensively studied and implemented for numerous applications during the last decades 18–22 . Pickering emulsions can be either oil‐in‐water (o/w) or water‐in‐oil (w/o), according to the wettability of the solid particles at the oil–water interface 23,24 …”

“…Pickering emulsions has been extensively studied and implemented for numerous applications during the last decades. [18][19][20][21][22] Pickering emulsions can be either oil-in-water (o/w) or water-in-oil (w/o), according to the wettability of the solid particles at the oil-water interface. 23,24 Emulsion Templating-based colloidosomes is one application route that leads to building robust microcapsules with colloidal particle shells, termed colloidosomes.…”