ABSTRACT
The engineering of emulsion structures has attracted the interest of many research laboratories over the last few years due to increasing industrial demand for colloidal matrices that could be used as bio-microreactors in biotechnology, vehicles for delivering and controlled release of lipophilic (or hydrophilic) active compounds in pharmaceutical and cosmetic formulations, tunable systems for controlling texture, stability and rheological properties of food products, and many other welldened and protable applications. In this chapter, we have shown an example of how an overall structure of emulsion can be controlled by tailoring the emulsier composition. The emulsiers described here are fatty acid ester derivatives of glycerol and propylene glycol that have been synthesizedin the presence of various fatty acid carboxylates. The emulsion preparation conditions and the fatty acid prole of the amphiphiles, the emulsiers were composed of, enabled the preparation of the systems where a dispersed phase was stabilized by crystalline interfacial lms. The type and the structure of emulsions were largely dependent on the type and the concentration of the carboxylates, as well as the type of the polyol used to synthesize emulsiers.
