A miniemulsion (also known as nanoemulsion) is a special type of

emulsion An emulsion is a mixture of two or more liquids that are normally immiscible (unmixable or unblendable) owing to liquid-liquid phase separation. Emulsions are part of a more general class of two-phase systems of matter called colloids. Altho ...

. A miniemulsion is obtained by

shearing Sheep shearing is the process by which the woollen fleece of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a '' shearer''. Typically each adult sheep is shorn once each year (a sheep may be said to have been "shorn" or ...

a mixture comprising two immiscible liquid phases (for example, oil and water), one or more

surfactants Surfactants are chemical compounds that decrease the surface tension between two liquids, between a gas and a liquid, or interfacial tension between a liquid and a solid. Surfactants may act as detergents, wetting agents, emulsifiers, foaming ...

and, possibly, one or more co-surfactants (typical examples are hexadecane or cetyl alcohol). There are two general types of methods for preparing miniemulsions: high-energy methods and low-energy methods. For the high-energy methods, the shearing proceeds usually via exposure to high power

ultrasound Ultrasound is sound waves with frequencies higher than the upper audible limit of human hearing. Ultrasound is not different from "normal" (audible) sound in its physical properties, except that humans cannot hear it. This limit varies ...

"Translucent Oil-in-Water Nanoemulsions", Industrial Sonomechanics, LLC, 2011
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"Nanoemulsions Used for Parenteral Nutrition", Industrial Sonomechanics, LLC, 2011
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"Drug-Carrier Liposomes and Nanoemulsions", Industrial Sonomechanics, LLC, 2011
/ref> of the mixture or with a high-pressure

homogenizer A homogenizer is a piece of laboratory or industrial equipment used for the homogenization of various types of material, such as tissue, plant, food, soil, and many others. Many different models have been developed using various physical technologie ...

, which are high-shearing processes. For the low-energy methods, the water-in-oil emulsion is usually prepared and then transformed into an oil-in-water miniemulsion by changing either composition or temperature. The water-in-oil emulsion is diluted dropwise with water to an inversion point or gradually cooled to a phase inversion temperature. The emulsion inversion point and phase inversion temperature cause a significant decrease in the interfacial tension between two liquids, thereby generating very tiny oil droplets dispersed in the water. Miniemulsions are kinetically stable but thermodynamically unstable. Oil and water are incompatible in nature, and the interface between them is not favored. Therefore, given a sufficient amount of time, the oil and water in miniemulsions separate again. Various mechanisms such as gravitational separation,

flocculation Flocculation, in the field of chemistry, is a process by which colloidal particles come out of suspension to sediment under the form of floc or flake, either spontaneously or due to the addition of a clarifying agent. The action differs from ...

coalescence Coalescence may refer to: * Coalescence (chemistry), the process by which two or more separate masses of miscible substances seem to "pull" each other together should they make the slightest contact * Coalescence (computer science), the merging of ...

, and

Ostwald ripening Ostwald ripening is a phenomenon observed in solid solutions or liquid sols that describes the change of an inhomogeneous structure over time, i.e., small crystals or sol particles dissolve, and redeposit onto larger crystals or sol particles ...

result in instability. In an ideal miniemulsion system,

and

are suppressed thanks to the presence of the surfactant and co-surfactant.Mason TG, Wilking JN, Meleson K, Chang CB, Graves SM, "Nanoemulsions: formation, structure, and physical properties", Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 2006, 18(41): R635-R666 With the addition of

, stable

droplets A drop or droplet is a small column of liquid, bounded completely or almost completely by free surfaces. A drop may form when liquid accumulates at the lower end of a tube or other surface boundary, producing a hanging drop called a pendant d ...

are then obtained, which have typically a size between 50 and 500 nm. Miniemulsions have wide application in the synthesis of nanomaterials and in the pharmaceutical and food industries. For example, miniemulsion-based processes are, therefore, particularly adapted for the generation of

nanomaterials * Nanomaterials describe, in principle, materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 100 nm (the usual definition of nanoscale). Nanomaterials research takes a materials science-based approach to na ...

. There is a fundamental difference between traditional emulsion polymerisation and a miniemulsion polymerisation. Particle formation in the former is a mixture of micellar and homogeneous nucleation, particles formed via miniemulsion however are mainly formed by droplet nucleation. In the pharmaceutical industry, oil droplets act as tiny containers that carry water-insoluble drugs, and the water provides a mild environment that is compatible with the human body. Moreover, miniemulsions that carry drugs allow the drugs to crystallize in a controlled size with a good dissolution rate. Finally, in the food industry, miniemulsions can not only be loaded with water-insoluble nutrients, such as beta-carotene and

curcumin Curcumin is a bright yellow chemical produced by plants of the ''Curcuma longa'' species. It is the principal curcuminoid of turmeric (''Curcuma longa''), a member of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae. It is sold as a herbal supplement, cosmet ...

, but also improve the nutrients' digestibility.

References

{{reflist Colloidal chemistry fr:Miniémulsion