Emulsifying 16.5% water for oil in water emulsion

Formulating

Emulsifying 16.5% water for oil in water emulsion

Posted by Jake on April 13, 2020 at 9:04 am

I have a formula which i would appreciate any help on please.

I have a 42% oil phase and my water phase consists of 16.5% water,
3.5% propylene glycol, 1.5% glycerin, 1% Peg 40 HCO.

Emulsifiers used are:
5.5% Peg 7 cc
5% Ceteareth 25
3% Polysorbate 60

The product emulsifies but I think it could be better, the emulsion seems that it could break apart, anyone got ideas on the emulsifiers I am using if they are sufficient and if percentages should be adjusted please?

ngarayeva001 replied 4 years ago 3 Members · 10 Replies
10 Replies

ngarayeva001

Member
April 13, 2020 at 10:14 am

You need stabilisers to hold it together. This product has too high internal phase. My point is, you either add a lot of thickeners (cetearyl alcohol etc) and gums and probably change your emulsification system to say GMS+ PEG100 stearate plus ceteareth 20/25 and end up with a thick butter or you need to get an emulsifier that is specifically designed for high internal phase o/w. I recall Alchemy should have something like this.
ngarayeva001

Member
April 13, 2020 at 10:28 am

Why do you need such a high oil phase if I may ask?
Pharma

Member
April 13, 2020 at 7:45 pm

Your % doesn’t add up to 100 but 74% if I did the maths right.

You can do a high internal oil phase emulsion as @ngarayeva001 suggested or rather, you actually have one already (adding oil + emulsifiers and adjusting total 5 gives 76% inner phase = slightly above theoretical requirement for a true HIPE. BTW PEG 40 HCO in your system is considered an emulsifier.

Some HIPEs are fairly easy to make, I even managed to create something after just a handful of trials which isn’t based on sucrose esters as sold by Alchemy Ingredients. Though these sucrose esters seem to me of being more reliable, more easily giving stable emulsions, and the sensorial is also great (if you like HIPE gels). Your product is likely not going to create a good HIPE because you have too much water and not enough polyol. I’m not sure whether you use the right emulsifiers though. What is PEG 7 cc? Certain PEG-based emulsifiers (that’s what all your 4 emulsifiers are) can be used to produce stable HIPEs, they’ve been used for this purpose well before Alchemy Ingredients got on the sugar rush.
ngarayeva001

Member
April 14, 2020 at 5:29 pm

@Pharma, this is very interesting! I am not a fan of alchemy ingredients, to be honest. The one I most familiar with is sucragel which I don’t think I will even repurchase but I know they specialise on such things. May I ask for an example of PEG-emulsifier that can make o/w HIPE? I don’t see much application for those (I am a huge fan of HIPE w/o though) but very curious.
Pharma

Member
April 14, 2020 at 8:12 pm

For example HERE. There are many more but they’re sometimes a bit tricky to find and even to find again…
ngarayeva001

Member
April 14, 2020 at 11:00 pm

Thank you!
Pharma

Member
May 11, 2020 at 7:38 pm

@ngarayeva001 Found another publication:

Citation from: Influence of oil types on the formation and stability of nano-emulsions by D phase emulsification by Wanping Zhang et al. DOI:10.1080/01932691.2020.1737538

2. Experimental

2.1. Materials

Span 80 (sorbitan monooleate, HLB = 4.3) and Tween 80 (polyoxyethylene sorbitan monooleate, HLB = 15.0) were purchased from Sinopham Chemical Reagent Co.,Ltd. The ratio in weight of Span 80 and Tween 80 used was 3:5 (HLB = 11). The five kind of mineral oils (7#, 10#, 15#, 26#, 32#) and caprylic/capric triglyceride (CCT) were supplied by BASF Corp. Isododecane, isohexadecane and squalane were supplied by INEOS Oligomers. Ethylhexyl palmitate (EHP) and isopropyl myristate (IPM) were obtained from Croda Chemicals. Furthermore, triethylhexanoin (THE) and glycerin were obtained from Lubrizol and Infinitus Co.,Ltd respectively. Deionized water was used to prepare all emulsions.

2.2. Preparation of nano-emulsion by D phaseemulsification

The D phase emulsification process was carried out as fol-lows. At first, 2.0 g of glycerin, 3.0 g of Span 80 and 5.0 g of Tween 80 were mixed and the yielded mixture called the D phase. The mixed HLB value of the Span 80 and Tween 80 in this ratio was 11. Then 20 g of liquid oil was added drop-wise with stirring at specific temperature into the D phase and then an oil-in-surfactant clear gel formed which called O/D phase. The stirring procedure lasted for 30 minutes to produce a fine O/D phase which was very important to the formation of the nano-emulsions. For O/W nano-emulsion preparation, gradual addition of water (to 100 g) to the O/D phase was carried out with stirring. The stirring speed of the whole preparation process was 700 rpm.
ngarayeva001

Member
May 12, 2020 at 6:48 pm

Thank you very much @Pharma. That’s a very interesting experiment and I will save this to try at some point.
Pharma

Member
May 16, 2020 at 1:25 pm

@ngarayeva001 Just found another goldie (‘k, it’s not one of your beloved silocones but from Evonik… 🙂 ): CLICK
ngarayeva001

Member
May 17, 2020 at 12:16 am

@Pharma thank you! I am quite familiar with Isolan GPS. It’s very good as a secondary emulsifier. I often add it for stability, because I noticed with w/o you need at least two emulsifiers. I haven’t tried it on it’s own though, probably I should.