I am looking for an experimental work that deal with non-ionic insoluble surfactant in O/W emulsion. All the non-ionic surfactants are soluble in water. I am wondering if there any non-ionic insoluble surfactant.
Dear Luma al ,
In general, it is an intrinsic feature of surfactants that they are soluble in water (as well). Since the definition of a surfactant (emulsifier) is that they have features of ‘both worlds’ by having a hydrophobic and hydrophilic part.
Still there are indeed water insoluble (non-ionic) surfactants. This can be achieved by multiple ways, for example by using the general ‘rule’ that increasing the hydrophobic part (by increasing the length of the acyl chains for example) will lower the solubility in water.
A nice (first) overview can be found here: https://www.pharmpress.com/files/docs/FTphyspharm_sample.pdf here you find the following statement: “Sorbitan esters are supplied commercially as Spans and are mixtures of the partial esters of sorbitol and its mono- and di-anhydrides with oleic acid. They are generally insoluble in water (low hydrophile–lipophile balance (HLB) value) and are used as water-in-oil emulsifiers and as wetting agents.” See for examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbitan and https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Sorbitan-monostearate
Perhaps the following papers are interesting to study further:
Sagitani, H. (1981). Making homogeneous and fine droplet O/W emulsions using nonionic surfactants. Journal of the American Oil Chemists’ Society, 58(6), 738-743. (see enclosed file)
Shahin, M., Hady, S. A., Hammad, M., & Mortada, N. (2011). Development of stable O/W emulsions of three different oils. Int J Pharm Stud Res, 2, 45-51.
Hope this helps you a bit further.
Best regards.
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