The pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry is hugely interested in "nanoemulsions" – oil-in-water emulsions in which the particles of one liquid are just a few nanometres across.
The idea is that drugs or nutrients in nanoemulsion form should be much easier for the body to absorb. The conventional way to make a nanoemulsion is to grind a mixture to make particles successively smaller.
Now Robert Nicolosi and a colleague from the University of Massachusetts, in Lowell, US, claim to have developed a better method.
Their idea is to pass the mixture of liquids through a kind of atomiser at a pressure of over 1700 atmospheres. This creates turbulence that rips large bubbles of liquid to into smaller, nano-sized bubbles.
Curiously, the resulting nanoemulsions also turn out to be sterile. Nicolosi thinks the turbulence rips apart any bacteria that might be present. This would be a boon to manufacturers because any product made from this kind of nanoemulsion should have a much longer shelf life than a non-sterile equivalent.
Read the full sterile nano cosmetics patent application.
Justin Mullins, New Scientist consultant