Extending Applications of High-Pressure Homogenization by Using Simultaneous Emulsification and Mixing (SEM)—An Overview

Abstract

Conventional high-pressure homogenization (HPH) is widely used in the pharmaceutical, chemical, and food industries among others. In general, its aim is to produce micron or sub-micron scale emulsions with excellent product characteristics. However, its energy consumption is still very high. Additionally, several limitations and boundaries impede the usage of high-pressure homogenization for special products such as particle loaded or highly concentrated systems. This article gives an overview of approaches that have been used in order to improve the conventional high-pressure homogenization process. Emphasis is put on the 'Simultaneous Emulsification and Mixing' process that has been developed to broaden the application areas of high-pressure homogenization.

Nanoemulsions: Factory for Food, Pharmaceutical and Cosmetics

“…In HPH, a small gap-usually with a gap height around 1 to 10 nm-causes the sudden pressure drop across HPH to reach a few thousand bars; the different phases composed of oil, water, and surfactant are forced into droplets and experience extreme shear and elongational stress, leading the droplets to be disrupted into finer droplets. The mixture is typically passed many times through the homogenizer until the droplet size is approximately constant [25][26][27]. Due to many different factors, for example, turbulence, and elongational and shear stress as well as cavitation, the fluid-dynamic stresses in HPH become higher.…”

“…It has been proven that when the same energy density is used, different disruption units produce different droplet sizes. The most important advantages of HPH for industrial production is that it is scalable, easy to operate, efficient, and has high reproducibility [27]. In HPH, an emulsion is formed by controlling the variation of the emulsifier and how fast the rate of coating the newly produced interface in the homogenizer is.…”

Influence of External Forces during Supercooling on Dispersion Stability during Melt Emulsification

“…To disrupt the droplets and initiate crystallization, the kinetic energy and the low temperature of the homogenization stream were used in this operational mode. For detailed information on the SHM process , , , or initiation of crystallization in emulsions, see the literature , , . Subsequently (12 mm after the orifice), high‐shear stress was applied in a HSSZ to investigate the influence of external forces on the dispersion size, shape, and stability.…”

“…A special HPH technique – simultaneous homogenization and mixing (SHM) – combines the two unit operations – homogenization and crystallization – during the melt emulsification process in one device . In SHM melt emulsification, the process is divided into two feed streams: (1) a homogenization stream (HS) and (2) a mixing stream (MS) merging in an efficient mixing chamber.…”

Enzymatic polymerization of catechol under high-pressure homogenization for the green coloration of textiles

“…Several works have been reporting enzyme catalysis assisted by high-pressure homogenization (HPH) (Gonçalves et al, 2014;Martins et al, 2015), and their results reveal HPH as a promising method to improve the enzyme application under cavitation effects. Highpressure homogenization, as well as ultrasound, are known to produce cavitation, which may accelerate reactions and increment the mass transport phenomena (Gall et al, 2016;Romanski et al, 2011). Until now and from our knowledge, the use of HPH on the polymer synthesis is still poorly explored.…”