This
work reports for the first time on the use of Confined Impinging
Jet Mixers (CIJM) for the production of emulsions with dispersed-phase
content up to 80 wt %, in both the surfactant-poor and -rich regimes,
following the exposure to varying CIJM hydrodynamic conditions. It
was observed computationally and experimentally that the CIJM capacity
resulted strictly dependent on the mass jet flow rate (W
jet > 176 g/min) and the pre-emulsion droplet size
(>10
μm). CIJM emulsification performance remained (almost) unaffected
by the variation in the oil mass fraction. All systems showed the
lowest droplet size (∼8 μm) and similar droplet size
distributions under the highest W
jet.
Conditionally onto the Tween20 availability, the emulsion d
3,2 was primarily determined by formulation
characteristics in the surfactant poor-regime and by the CIJM energy
dissipation rate in the surfactant-rich regime. In conclusion, this
study offers further insights into the CIJM suitability as a realistic
alternative to already-established emulsification methods.