The pretreatment process is an essential step for nanofibrillated cellulose production as it enhances size reduction efficiency, reduces production cost, and decreases energy consumption. In this study, nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) was prepared using various pretreatment processes, either chemical (i.e., acid, basic, and bleach) or hydrothermal (i.e., microwave and autoclave), followed by disintegration using high pressure homogenization from oat bran fibers. The obtained NFC were used as an emulsifier to prepare 10% oil-in-water emulsions. The emulsion containing chemically pretreated NFC exhibited the smallest oil droplet diameter (d32) at 3.76 μm, while those containing NFC using other pretreatments exhibited d32 values > 5 μm. The colors of the emulsions were mainly influenced by oil droplet size rather than the color of the fiber itself. Both NFC suspensions and NFC emulsions showed a storage modulus (G') higher than the loss modulus (G″) without crossing over, indicating gel-like behavior. For emulsion stability, microwave pretreatment effectively minimized gravitational separation, and the creaming indices of all NFC-emulsions were lower than 6% for the entire storage period. In conclusion, chemical pretreatment was an effective method for nanofiber extraction with good emulsion capacity. However, the microwave with bleaching pretreatment was an alternative method for extracting nanofibers and needs further study to improve the efficiency.
Keywords: chemical pretreatment; hydrothermal pretreatment; nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC); oat bran; storage modulus.