The cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries are fields that are continuously trying to take advantage of new technological advances while simultaneously respecting the latest global guidelines in developing quality and effective formulations. The cosmetics industry in particular has in recent years focused on more durable, clean and natural products without using a multitude of ingredients in topical formulations. A new version of classic emulsions, which do not need emulsifiers for stabilization, but merely solid colloidal particles placed on the interfacial surface thus reducing the interfacial tension, are named Pickering emulsions. The latter are less irritating to the skin in comparison to classic emulsions. Pickering emulsions are also biocompatible, have better permeability through the skin, we can easily formulate and control release of active ingredients or active pharmaceutical ingredients and the surface of the particles is easily modified.
The aim of this diploma was to experimentally identify the importance of parameters that can influence the physical stability of our Pickering emulsions formulations stabilized with colloidal silica particles. The produced formulations of Pickering emulsions differed in proportions of water, olive oil and Aerosil 200®, which stabilized the emulsion. We evaluated the samples when they were first made and after one month of aging at different storage temperatures. We measured the creaming index, evaluated the droplet size of the inner phase with an optical microscope and measured the viscosity with a Brookfield viscometer.
The results showed that the aging temperature of the emulsion does not have a significant impact on the stability of the produced emulsions. In addition, the size of the emulsion droplets at the beginning of the experimental work did not significantly affect the stability of the Pickering emulsions, as some emulsions were more stable after one month while having a much larger droplet size distribution. The two key parameters for emulsion stability were the proportion of stabilizing particles and the proportion of water in the formulation. When measuring the viscosity of the formulations we found that it had a significant effect on the long-term physical stability, as more viscous formulations were physically more stable than low-viscosity ones.
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