Emulsion Stability Evaluation Using Fractal Dimensions Approach

There are many developed strategies for evaluating emulsion stability, aimed at determining the life circle of emulsions. Most of them are based on rheological properties of emulsions. There are, however, very few based on direct emulsion observations. In this paper we present a developed method for the emulsion stability evaluation by direct observation of optical emulsion properties. We propose the fractal dimension approach as a stability quantification measure. The method is based on the measure of emulsion transmittance properties, which are directly dependent on the emulsion stability at the moment of measurement. The oil in water emulsion was used as a test emulsion. The system is classified as stable emulsion and our intention was to find the moment when it starts to break. Emulsion transmittance properties were measure applying a system for acquisition of visual information, which is based on a CCD camera and a fast PC configuration equipped with the capturing software. The acquired sets of visual information were analyzed by the OZARIA software package. The fractal dimensions were determined by the box counting method. For these experiments, 100 boxes of different sizes were used. Experimental emulsions were measured after 7, 14, 21 and 28 days from the moment of creation. A slight increase in fractal dimensions was observed, which indicates that the emulsions are still in the stable region, or from the fractal point of view emulsion are still regular and no significant irregularities were observed. From the first experiments the applied methodology proved to be sensitive enough to be used for emulsions stability evaluation.