Abstract
Membrane emulsification is a technique utilising a novel concept of generating droplet ‘drop by drop’ to produce emulsions. The technique has several distinctive advantages over the conventional emulsification techniques.This paper concerns on the development of membrane emulsification (Rotating Membrane Reactor, RMR) which utilizes rotating tubular membrane to initiate droplet detachments. The RMR uses a rotating stainless steel tubular membrane with laser drilled pores (100 μm pore diameter) and a syringe pump to drive the dispersed phase through the membrane at a given flow rate. O/W formulations were prepared with low viscosity of paraffin wax, two types of emulsifiers, different membrane rotation rate and dispersed phase flow rate. The emulsion droplets exhibited a coefficient of variation of 9% and 81μm droplet size. In this research, the pore size/droplet size ratio could achieve 0.8. This value was below than other membrane emulsification processes. The effects of principal system operating parameters on both the average droplet diameter and droplet uniformity were discussed. In addition, a multiple (W/O/W) emulsion formulation was investigated as well.
Highlights
Existing methods for manufacturing emulsions involve droplet break-up using shear or impact stresses. These have some problems relating to emulsion production such as inefficiency of energy used, lack of droplet size and size distribution control and poor equipment reproducibility [1]
Single (O/W) emulsions was successfully produced through a rotating membrane emulsification system
Tween 20 and sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) were used as emulsifier and carbomer was employed as stabilizer
Summary
Existing methods for manufacturing emulsions involve droplet break-up using shear or impact stresses These have some problems relating to emulsion production such as inefficiency of energy used, lack of droplet size and size distribution control and poor equipment reproducibility [1]. Size and size distribution of droplets can be carefully controlled through the selection of porous membrane, efflux rate of discontinuous phase, cross flow velocity of continuous phase, etc [1] It means that the membrane emulsification process can produce a narrow droplets size distribution [2,3], potential to produce monodispersity of emulsions [4] and require lower surfactant [3]. Membrane emulsification generally require lower energy input (104 – 106 J/m3) compared with the conventional emulsification (106-109 J/m3) [2,3,4]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
