Study of the synergic effect between mica and biosurfactant to stabilize Pickering emulsions containing Vitamin E using a triangular design.

HYPOTHESIS: Vitamin E has interesting biological functions for the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry because it can act as a fat-soluble antioxidant, as well as peroxyl radical scavenger. However, this vitamin is formed by a group of compounds that include tocopherols (γ-tocopherols, α-tocopherol) characterized by their poor solubility in water, what implies the need of using stabilizing agents such as biosurfactants or minerals, in order to make them soluble or stable in formulations composed by water and oil.

EXPERIMENTS: In this work, it has been evaluated the synergic effect between a mining silicate mineral (mica) and a biosurfactant extract, obtained from corn steep liquor, to stabilize emulsions containing water and a non-aqueous soluble antioxidant consisting of Vitamin E, through the use of a triangular design.

FINDINGS: The results show that the presence of biosurfactant extract improves the emulsion volume up to 70% after 22 days, for an emulsion composed of Vitamin E and biosurfactant, whereas the mica component was able to increase the emulsion stability until values of 80% after 30 days of experiment, for those emulsions containing 10% of mica. Hence, both novel ingredients produce a synergistic effect on the Pickering emulsions carried out in the study.