A study of the effectiveness and energy efficiency of ultrasonic emulsification

Abstract

Three essential experimental parameters in the ultrasonic emulsification process, namely sonication time, acoustic amplitude and processing volume, were individually investigated, theoretically and experimentally, and correlated to the emulsion droplet sizes produced. The results showed that with a decrease in droplet size, two kinetic regions can be separately correlated prior to reaching a steady state droplet size: a fast size reduction region and a steady state transition region. In the fast size reduction region, the power input and sonication time could be correlated to the volume-mean diameter by a power-law relationship, with separate power-law indices of -1.4 and -1.1, respectively. A proportional relationship was found between droplet size and processing volume. The effectiveness and energy efficiency of droplet size reduction was compared between ultrasound and high-pressure homogenisation (HPH) based on both the effective power delivered to the emulsion and the total electric power consumed. Sonication could produce emulsions across a broad range of sizes, while high-pressure homogenisation was able to produce emulsions at the smaller end of the range. For ultrasonication, the energy efficiency was higher at increased power inputs due to more effective droplet breakage at high ultrasound intensities. For HPH the consumed energy efficiency was improved by operating at higher pressures for fewer passes. At the laboratory scale, the ultrasound system required less electrical power than HPH to produce an emulsion of comparable droplet size. The energy efficiency of HPH is greatly improved at large scale, which may also be true for larger scale ultrasonic reactors.

Establishment of a standardized dietary model for nanoparticles oral exposure studies

“…The stability of emulsions is important parameters of the food products. High‐pressure and ultrasonic homogenization are most used to prepare food grade nano‐emulsions (Anwar et al., 2020; Calligaris et al., 2018; Li et al., 2017; Li & Xiang, 2019). In contrary, a better performance of ultrasound was observed in food and beverage industries (Li & Xiang, 2019), which depend to the composition of emulsion.…”

Thermoresponsive GenisteinNLC-dexamethasone-moxifloxacin multi drug delivery system in lens capsule bag to prevent complications after cataract surgery

“…Homogenization and ultrasound emulsification are widely used as joints 37 . Because two different kinds of emulsifier, Kolliphor HS 15 and Cremphor EL were used in our study, both of which are powerful emulsifiers 38,39 , we only used hot homogenization method to simplify the procedure of GenNLC preparation without adding ultrasound emulsification method for avoid unstable high surface energy 40 .…”

Determination of optimal ultrasound conditions for preparation of O/W emulsions with encapsulated juniper berry essential oil (Juniperus communis L.)

“…In recent years, ultrasound-assisted technologies have received much attention for emulsion formation (5). The ultrasound emulsification has advantages over other techniques, providing good energy-efficiency, low production cost and simple system manipulation (6,7). This method can be considered as a fast and efficient technique for production of stable nanoemulsion with very low polydispersity.…”

“…Ultrasound formation of emulsion occurs due to physical shear and turbulence generated through acoustic cavitations. During this process, pressure fluctuation of the sound wave causes the formation of gas micro-bubbles in the medium, which grow and collapse within microseconds, causing implosions at a micro-scale, providing intense localized shear forces, resulting in efficient mixing of two liquid phases (6). The efficiency of ultrasound emulsification depends on the sonication time, sonication energy, surfactant concentration, oil/water fraction, physical-chemical properties and concentration of oil and viscosity of continuous phase (7,8).…”