Advanced Emulsions: Enabling Advanced Emulsion With Microchannel Architecture

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-12-2007

Department

Polymers and High Performance Materials

Abstract

An innovative emulsification technology that produces modern emulsions at a reasonable cost has been demonstrated. This process is useful for producing conventional emulsions, and so-called "surfactant free" emulsions, which are stabilized by particles and/or amphipathic polymers. Such emulsions present significant formulation and processing challenges because conventional emulsification techniques rely upon shear force to break up the droplets formed by the discontinuous phase and to transport the emulsifier to the interface. Microchannel emulsification technology is unlike traditional methods that use high-shear forces to form small droplets. This technology, which consists of intervening microchannels with apertured substrates, adds the discontinuous to the continuous phase, one droplet at a time, and provides better control than conventional methods. The droplet size distribution is controlled by adjusting critical process parameters (mixing energy, mixing time), and precise heating and/or cooling.

Publication Title

ACS Symposium Series

Volume

961

First Page

83

Last Page

96

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