Fabrication of Nanoemulsions by Microfluidization

Nanoemulsions produced by microfluidization are widely used in the food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industry to carry out encapsulation, improve solubility, and perform entrapment and controlled release of bioactive ingredients such as vitamins, drugs, antioxidants, and flavors. The microfluidizers are homogenizers operating at high pressures (up to 275. MPa) that are considered superior to other traditional homogenization methods because the obtained emulsion droplet sizes are more uniform with a low polydispersity index, providing an improvement in the bioavailability of different functional ingredients. By means of microfluidization, coarse emulsions may be transformed into nanoemulsions whose minimum size will depend on the interaction chamber used, operating conditions, residence time of emulsions in the interaction chamber, emulsion composition, and physicochemical properties of each phase. In this chapter, application of microfluidization for producing nanoemulsions and its working principles are reviewed.