Production of oil in water emulsions in microchannels at high throughput: Evaluation of emulsions in view of cosmetic, nutraceutical or pharmaceutical applications

Ralph Nehme (1) , Walid Blel (1) , Agnès Montillet (1) , Jérôme Bellettre (2) , Luc Marchal (1)

1 GEPEA - Laboratoire de génie des procédés - environnement - agroalimentaire
2 LTeN - Laboratoire de Thermique et d’Energie de Nantes

This work investigates the quality of emulsions obtained from fast emulsification in a microsystem implemented at high throughput. The aim is to manufacture oil in water (O/W) emulsions in which bioactive ingredients could be encapsulated. These emulsions may be of interest for cosmetic, nutraceutical and/or pharmaceutical applications. A microsystem based on an improved cross-slot configuration is tested for production of emulsions with various formulations in a range of flow rate comprised in 100-600 mL/min. Dispersed lipid phase consists mainly in sunflower oil. The continuous aqueous phase is a Non-Newtonian fluid as it includes xanthan in order to stabilize the emulsions. Several commercial surfactants are also used to stabilize the emulsions. Their stability is examined during a storage period of approximately 30 days. For most tests, the evaluation of emulsions is based on a comparison with emulsions produced from a commercial laboratory rotor stator emulsifier. The results show only a few slight differences between the characteristics of emulsions generated in continuous in the microsystem and those obtained from the batch rotor-stator emulsifier. The results are therefore mostly comparable, which leads to the conclusion that microsystems can offer an interesting alternative to the small-scale production of emulsions.

Mots clés: Microsystems; oil-in-water emulsion; continuous emulsification; physical stability; size distribution

Domaines: Thermique [physics.class-ph]

Ralph Nehme, Walid Blel, Agnès Montillet, Jérôme Bellettre, Luc Marchal. Production of oil in water emulsions in microchannels at high throughput: Evaluation of emulsions in view of cosmetic, nutraceutical or pharmaceutical applications. Chemical Engineering and Processing - Process Intensification, 2021, 161, pp.108301. ⟨10.1016/j.cep.2021.108301⟩. ⟨hal-03148346⟩