Hello researchers. I'm looking for production of an emulsion oil (disperse phase) in water (continuous phase) but I desire a droplet size for the oil phase in between 500 nm - 1000 nm and the emulsion a little bit translucent at least not too dim. Have anybody any sugestions (stirring, surfactants, ....) how to produce it?
I recommend to have a look at the works of Jerome Bibette and his group. He has worked a lot on preparation for monodisperse emulsions using a fractionation approach. For a review you could start with J. Bibette et al.
DOI: 10.1088/0034-4885/62/6/203 . Besides fractionation also controled shear can be used to obtain monodisperse emulsions (see e.g. C. Mabille et al. DOI: 10.1021/la990850w)
For oil in water emulsion silicon oil is well suited.
Repeated passes through any high pressure homogenizer and the appropriate type & amount of surfactant will get you the size that you want. No need for microfluidics, which is useless anyway if you want more than a tiny amount of sample.
you can tune optical appearance by modifying the refractive index of continuous phase, e.g. by adding glycerol (will of course also affect particle size as increased viscosity ratio will increase shear forces).
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