A miniemulsion (also known as nanoemulsion) is a special case of emulsion. A miniemulsion is obtained by shearing a mixture comprising two immiscible liquid phases (for example, oil and water), one or more surfactants and, possibly, one or more co-surfactants (typical examples are hexadecane or cetyl alcohol).
The shearing proceeds usually via exposure to high power ultrasound of the mixture or with a high-pressure homogenizer, which are high-shearing processes. In an ideal miniemulsion system, coalescence and Ostwald ripening are suppressed thanks to the presence of the surfactant and co-surfactant.
Stable droplets are then obtained, which have typically a size between 50 and 500 nm. Miniemulsion-based processes are, therefore, particularly adapted for the generation of nanomaterials. There is a fundamental difference between traditional emulsion polymerisation and a miniemulsion polymerisation. Particle formation in the former is a mixture of micellar and homogeneous nucleation, particles formed via miniemulsion however are mainly formed by droplet nucleation.