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Abstract
A two-step process for formation of nanoemulsions in the system water/poly(oxyethylene) nonionic surfactant/methyl decanoate at 25 C
is described. First, all the components were mixed at a certain composition to prepare a microemulsion concentrate, which was rapidly subjected into a large dilution into water to generate an emulsion. Bluish transparent oil-in-water (O/W) nanoemulsions were formed only when
the concentrate was located in the bicontinuous microemulsion (BC) or oil-in-water microemulsion (Wm) region. The existence of an optimum
oil-to-surfactant ratio (Ros ) in the BC or Wm region indicates that both the phase behavior and the composition of the concentrate are important
factors in nanoemulsion formation. To demonstrate potential applications of these systems, they were employed to formulate a water-insoluble
pesticide, -cypermethrin (-CP). The nanoemulsion was compared with a commercial -CP microemulsion in terms of the stability of sprayed
formulations.
2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Nanoemulsion; Equilibrium phase behavior; Pesticide formulation
1. Introduction
Nanoemulsions [1] have uniform and extremely small droplet sizes, typically in the range of 20200 nm. In addition, high
kinetic stability, low viscosity and optical transparency make
them very attractive systems for many industrial applications;
for example, in the pharmaceutical field as drug delivery systems [2,3], in cosmetics as personal care formulations [4], in
agrochemicals for pesticide delivery [5], and in the chemical
industry as polymerization reaction media [6]. The use of nanoemulsions as colloidal drug carriers is well-documented [3,
79]. The bioavailability of drugs was reported to be strongly
enhanced by solubilization in small droplets (below 0.2 m);
for example, submicronic emulsions were found to increase the
bioavailability of cefpodoxime proxetil from 50 to 98%, compared to other oral formulations [9].
Unlike microemulsions, nanoemulsions are metastable systems, and stability depends on the method of preparation. The
most common approach is high-energy emulsification [10], using high-shear stirring, high-pressure homogenizers and ultra* Corresponding author.
sound generators. More recently a neat low-energy emulsification method [11] has been developed, by taking advantage
of phase behavior and properties, to promote the formation of
ultra-small droplets. These low energy techniques include selfemulsification [1214], phase transition [1,15,16] and phase
inversion temperature methods (PIT) [1722]. To make use
of these approaches, it is necessary to study the relationship
between the equilibrium phase behavior of the initial system
and the resulting nanoemulsions. For example, with the PIT
method, emulsions are obtained by increasing or lowering the
temperature quickly to pass through the HLB (hydrophile
lipophile balance) temperature in a system containing nonionic
surfactant. In particular, if the initial system is located in a
bicontinuous microemulsion region (D phase) or a two phase
(W + D) system at the HLB temperature, nanoemulsions can
be readily generated [20]. In the phase transition method, water
is added dropwise to a mixture of surfactants and oil at constant
temperature. The formation of nanoemulsions is generally attributed to phase instabilities during emulsification, where the
presence of lamellar liquid crystallites and/or bicontinuous microemulsions are thought to play critical roles [1,23,24]. However, no direct evidence has yet been put forward to clarify these
issues. Further effort is required in order to fully understand the
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231
(A) A two-step process: first, mixing all appropriate components to generate a concentrate; then, a certain amount of
concentrate was injected into a very much larger volume
of water under gentle stirring to achieve the final emulsion.
The water concentration in the initial concentrate was fixed
at 50 wt%. This could be termed a crash dilution method.
(B) Water was added dropwise to the surfactant and oil mixture. The addition rate was adjusted carefully, to ensure it
was slow enough that so the bicontinuous D phase or oil-inwater Wm phase was present, but not too slow to result in
an increase in droplet size due to emulsion destabilization.
(C) An appropriate amount of water was poured into a starting
solution of the surfactant and oil mixture. No obvious distinct stable phases were noted during the emulsification
procedure, except for the starting isotropic mixtures of oil
and surfactant and the final emulsion.
The final concentration of water was kept constant at
97.5 wt% and the temperature was held at 25 1 C (thermostat
bath K20, ThermoHaake, Germany).
2. Experimental
2.1. Materials
A technical grade poly(oxyethylene) lauryl ether, with an
average of 7 mol of ethylene oxide (EO) per surfactant molecule, was supplied by Xingtai Lantian Jingxi Chemical Co.
Lt. Methyl decanoate (purity 98.7%) was supplied by Wujiang
Tianhong Food Corporation. -Cypermethrin (-CP) (purity
97%) and a commercial -CP microemulsion were purchased
from Yetian Agrochemical Corporation. All products were used
without further purification. Water was twice distilled.
2.2. Methods
2.2.1. Phase diagrams
All components were weighed, sealed in ampoules, and homogenized with a vibromixer. The samples were kept at 25 C
to equilibrate. Optically anisotropic liquid crystalline phases
were identified by using polarizing light microscopy (PLM,
BX51, Olympus, Japan) through identification of characteristic
textures. The boundary lines were found by consecutive addition of one component to mixtures of the other components.
2.2.2. Nanoemulsion preparation
Emulsions were prepared using the following low-energy
emulsification methods (Fig. 1):
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L. Wang et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 314 (2007) 230235
L. Wang et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 314 (2007) 230235
233
Fig. 3. Droplet size of the nanoemulsions at 25 C as a function of water content in the concentrate with various oil-to-surfactant weight ratios Ros : 0.9 (1),
1 (!), and 1.1 (P). The dotted lines indicate the range of D or Wm phase for
the corresponding system.
234
L. Wang et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 314 (2007) 230235
Fig. 5. Droplet sizes at 25 C as a function of time at various Ros : 0.8 (1), 0.9
(!), 1 (P), 1.1 () and 1.2 (E).
Fig. 6. Droplet sizes at 25 C as a function of the -CP present in the oil phase
at 0 h (1) and 24 h (!), respectively. The corresponding phase behavior for the
initial system is shown above.
L. Wang et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 314 (2007) 230235
235
Fig. 8. Polarizing light microscopy images taken of spray solution diluted from (a) the commercial -CP microemulsion; (b) the nanoemulsion formulation after
24 h.