Plant Latex as a Versatile and Sustainable Emulsifier

Emulsions are a class of high-surface-energy materials typically stabilized by surfactants, polymers, particles, or a combination of these. There has been considerable effort to develop new emulsifiers by exploiting developments in synthetic chemistry; however, synthetic surface-active species may assist in the stabilization of a specific type of immiscible liquid-liquid systems. That is, one stabilizer does not provide a solution for all interface stabilization problems. Moreover, the synthesis of surface-active systems involves high production costs and complex synthesis routes and generates a substantial amount of chemical waste. In this work, we show that plant latex, an aqueous dispersion of colloidal-scale particles in which small as well as large bioactive species are also present, can be used as a versatile and sustainable source for interface stabilization. The constituents of the latex are found to reduce the oil-water interfacial tension due to the spontaneous adsorption of surface-active species present in the latex. The surface-active nature of latex is further exploited to obtain very stable single emulsions, double emulsions (DEs), and multiple emulsions (MEs). Our results conclusively show that plan latex is a potential versatile source for the stabilization of emulsions created by considering different types of immiscible liquid systems.

Automated summary

Emulsions are high-surface-energy materials that are typically stabilized by surfactants, polymers, particles, or a combination of these. Plant latex, with its surface-active properties, can be used as a versatile and sustainable source for interface stabilization of emulsions, providing an alternative to costly and environmentally detrimental synthetic methods.