Production of Concentrated Pickering Emulsions with Narrow Size Distributions using Stirred Cell Membrane Emulsification

Stirred cell membrane emulsification (SCME) has been employed to prepare concentrated Pickering oil in water emulsions solely stabilized by fumed silica nanoparticles. The optimal conditions under which highly stable and low polydispersity concentrated emulsions using the SCME approach are highlighted. Optimization of the oil flux rates and the paddle stirrer speeds are critical to achieving control over the droplet size and size distribution. Investigating the influence of oil volume fraction highlights the criticality of the initial particle loading in the continuous phase on the final droplet size and polydispersity. At a particle loading of 4 wt%, both the droplet size and polydispersity increase with increasing of the oil volume fraction above 50%. As more interfacial area is produced the number of particles available in the continuous phase diminish and coincidently a reduction in the kinetics of particle adsorption to the interface resulting in larger polydisperse droplets. Increasing the particle loading to 10 wt%, leads to significant improvements in both size and polydispersity with oil volume fractions as high as 70% produced with coefficient of variation values as low as ~30% compared to ~75% using conventional homogenization techniques.