Propylene Glycol and Ethoxylated Surfactant Effects on the Phase Behavior of Water/Sucrose Stearate/Oil System

In this work, we studied the phase behavior as function of temperature of water/sucrose stearate/propylene glycol/oil and water/sucrose stearate/ethoxylated mono‐di‐glyceride/oil systems. The oils were R (+)‐limonene, isopropylmyristate, and caprylic‐capric triglyceride. It was found that adding propylene glycol and ethoxylated mono‐di‐glyceride to the water/sucrose stearate/R (+)‐limonene and water/sucrose stearate/isopropylmyristate systems decreases the temperature and surfactants concentration needed for the formation of a microemulsion phase region and no three phase region is observed. In the case of water/sucrose stearate/caprylic‐capric triglyceride system a three phase region is observed. In the caprylic‐capric based system, it was found that increasing the propylene glycol and ethoxylated mono‐di‐glyceride contents decrease the phase inversion temperature and increases the efficiency. In the case where the mixed surfactants (sucrose stearate and ethoxylated mono‐di‐glyceride) were present in the system, the efficiencies observed are higher than those observed in the system based on the mixture of sucrose stearate and propylene glycol.

Keywords:

• Sucrose stearate
• mixed surfactants
• polyols
• phase inversion temperature
• efficiency
• microemulsions

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a COMSTECH‐ISESCO grant no. 3(60)/06‐COMSTECH.