Pickering emulsion gels with curdlan as both the emulsifier and the gelling agent: Emulsifying mechanism, gelling performance and gel properties

For the first time, curdlan (CL) was reported to have emulsifying property. Based on its emulsifying property and gelling property, the CL-based simple-structured emulsion gels were prepared. Among different CLs, CL-4 showed relatively good emulsifying property and its based emulsion showed the best stability, which might be mainly due to its highest hydrophobic property. The initial CL-4 gel formation temperature of the emulsion increased with oil volume fraction, which might be due to the oil droplets' interfering effect. Many non-spherical oil droplets appeared in the emulsion gel, which was mainly due to the squeezing effect of CL-4 gelation. The hardness, chewiness, springiness and cohesiveness of CL-4 based emulsion gels increased with CL-4 content. The texture parameters of emulsion gels with oil ratio ranging from 20 % to 40 % did not change significantly, which might benefit for increasing functional components' transportation efficiency of the emulsion gel without weakening its gel property significantly.