Ground-breaking work creates novel oil-in-water nanoemulsions

New innovation has considerable potential to be used as a new environmentally friendly matrix for the microencapsulation and controlled release of a wide range of actives.

Professor Steve Armes said: "It is well known that oil and water do not mix. Similarly, the incorporation of oil droplets within inorganic crystals is highly counter-intuitive because there is a large difference in surface energy for these two components. Our new occlusion protocol, developed using the high-pressure LV-1 microfluidizer, has enabled either oil-soluble dyes or oil-dispersible hydrophobic nanoparticles to be incorporated for the first time within host crystals. This exciting new innovation has considerable potential to be used as a new environmentally friendly matrix for the microencapsulation and controlled release of a wide range of actives for various commercial applications. In view of this, we have filed a preliminary patent application to protect the IP associated with our work.

Professor Ames added: “We are indebted to the excellent technical support provided by Analytik, which has enabled us to fully exploit the high-pressure LV-1 Microfluidizer for the production of well-defined nanoemulsions. We will be seeking their support and advice in the future as we seek to extend our studies to include water-in-oil nanoemulsions.”

The LV1 Microfluidizer is a high shear homogeniser which brings outstanding processing capabilities to samples as small as 1 mL. The LV1 has been designed to achieve operating pressures up to 30,000 psi for samples ranging from 1-6 mL. Using proprietary fixed-geometry interaction chamber technology, the LV1 is capable of processing a wide variety of fluids such as oil-in-water emulsions, solids-in-liquid suspensions, and cells, including the most difficult yeasts and plant cells, in as few as 1-2 passes. What's more, the process is repeatable and is guaranteed to scale up to pilot and/or production volumes.