Formation and investigation of microemulsions based on jojoba oil and nonionic surfactants

M. Shevachman, A. Shani, N. Garti*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

32 Scopus citations

Abstract

The properties of jojoba oil make it uniquely suited as a raw material for the cosmetics industry. Water-based, thermodynamically stable preparations of jojoba oil are essential in many formulations. New microemulsions were prepared based on jojoba oil and different nonionic surfactants, namely polyoxyethylene-(ethylene oxide)10-oleyl alcohol (Brij 96V) and ethoxylated sorbitan esters (Tweens). The effects of the surfactants and of primary alcohols as cosurfactants on the isotropic regions of the phase diagram were elucidated. It was found that, up to a certain cosurfactant chain length, the isotropic region expanded considerably as chain length increased. The size of the isotropic region also increased as a function of the ethylene glycol content of the aqueous phase in microernulsions based on ethoxylated alcohol but shrank when ethylene glycol was included in microemulsions prepared with ethoxylated sorbitan esters. Secondary structural phase transitions from water-in-oil to bicontinuous and to oil-in-water structures (as determined by measuring conductivity and viscosity) were found to be related to jojoba oil content. Dynamic light scattering and small angle X-ray scattering studies established that incorporation of jojoba oil into Brij 96V micelles caused micellar transformation from elongated to spherical droplets and a decrease in the aggregation number.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1143-1152
Number of pages10
JournalJAOCS, Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society
Volume81
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2004

Keywords

  • Brij 96V
  • Cosurfactants
  • Droplet shape
  • Ethoxylated sorbitan esters
  • Ethylene glycol
  • Jojoba oil
  • Medium-chain alcohols
  • Microemulsion
  • Solubilization
  • Structural transformation

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