Enhancement of storage stability of surimi particles stabilized novel pickering emulsions: Effect of different sequential ultrasonic processes

Preparation of highly stable Pickering emulsions stabilized by food grade particles especially with low concentrations is of concern. In this study, the effects of two-step emulsification procedure with different sequential ultrasonic processes on the storage stability, droplets size, zeta potential, microstructures as well as the rheological behaviors of surimi particles-stabilized Pickering emulsions with 0.6 oil–water ratio were investigated. The results showed that the surimi particles based-emulsions prepared by the homogenization-ultrasonic (H-U) or ultrasonic-homogenization (U-H) method both possessed excellent physical stability during 14 days storage. Particularly, the stability index of emulsions all exceeded 99.5% in the U-H groups. The confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) and cryo-scanning electron microscope (cryo-SEM) images provide evidence that more particles attached on the oil–water interfaces and the network structures formed via particle–particle interactions obviously arrested phase separation in H-U and U-H emulsions. Moreover, the Pickering emulsions obtained by two-step method all exhibited higher viscosity and storage modulus values, which were also conducive to the special storage stability of samples. In short, the storage stability of protein based-Pickering emulsions can be enhanced using homogenization-ultrasonic (H-U) or ultrasonic-homogenization (U-H) procedure.