(546c) Oil In Water Emulsions Using Confined Impinging Jet Mixer

High value food-grade products often require creation of micron size and smaller emulsions which can be stored for long periods of time for consumption and other applications. Emulsification using impinging jets ensures fast droplet break-up under intense mixing and high energy dissipation conditions, apart from providing a continuous alternate to batch-wise emulsification process. Using food-grade sunflower oil as the dispersed phase and a combination of oil volume fraction, emulsifier type and concentration and hydrodynamic conditions small emulsions of 3-4µm have been made (Siddiqui et al., 2011). Variation of disperse phase (oil) viscosity and oil types is expected to have significant impact on the end emulsion droplet size distribution and is investigated in this work. Emulsification is carried out in presence in presence of Sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and Tween 20 emulsifiers. The effect of repeated shear by re-circulating the emulsion through the impinging jet device is also studied. Multiple passes through the device allow subsequent breakage of droplets, besides allowing sufficient time for emulsifier to coat the newly formed droplet surface, thus avoiding re-coalescence.

Reference:

Siddiqui, S.W., and Norton, I.T. (2011) Investigation of the emulsification process of oil in water emulsions using confined impinging jets (Submitted)