Investigation of Factors Affecting the Emulsification of Skin Creams

Abstract: Skin creams are one of Sky Resources key products, they are produced as an oil-in-water(O/W) emulsion. In order to form an emulsion the oil and water needs to be able to mixtogether, for that to happen the oil and water droplets have to be broken up into very smalldroplets (colloids). There is a certain quality difference between the products from the research and developmentdepartment and the production department. The skin creams have been made through a given recipe, which contains a number of chemicalformulas. Tests have been preformed and the results have been examined. The creams werefirst made in the research and development department’s laboratory and then that small scaleproduction was taken to big scale production in the production department. The results havebeen documented and the parameters that have been examined are speed, temperature and timeto see how they affect the viscosity of the creams. A factorial experiment with three factors has been made. The factors are the time the skincream is homogenized, at what speed the cream is homogenized and at what temperature thephases are when the homogenizing is started. That gives a total of 8 creams from thelaboratory level. The viscosity of the skin creams have been measured after 10 minutes, 24 hours, 48 hours and1 week to see how it is increasing with time and if it is increasing at all or perhaps decreasing.After 1 week the creams were also studied under a microscope to see how successful theemulsions were with different factors. The fourth cream was the only cream from the laboratory that had a successful emulsion andstabilized viscosity. So the factors that are brought from laboratory to production is highhomogenization time, high homogenization speed and low temperature. Two differenthomogenizers were tried in production. The factor that affects the viscosity the most seems to be the temperature. After these tests,there is still a difference between the products from the research and development departmentand the production department even with the lower temperatures on the oil and water phases.The second cream from production and cream 4 from the laboratory show the smallest qualitydifference. More tests need to be done in the production department with differenthomogenization speed and time with the lower temperature to establish the result.