The present work confirmed the interest in investi-
gating high-pressure homogenization up to 350 MPa.
of food emulsions. Different oil]water emulsions were
homogenized at different pressures. Rheological measurements
indicated that increasing the homogenizing
pressure brought about the emulsions from a shearthinning
behavior to a Newtonian behavior, with a
great decrease of the viscosity. The flow curves could
be explained by the droplet size distributions at 20 and
150 MPa. Therefore, viscosities of emulsions obtained
at 300 MPa was difficult to link to light-scattering
measurements. Moreover, the pressure level did not
markedly influence droplet size distributions.
The high pressure, high shear and relatively high
temperature could also damage some constituents and
characteristics of food emulsions, that is why the experimental
study needs to be extended to give a more
precise and realistic description of emulsion formation
in the high-pressure homogenization process. In addition,
systematic experiments using well-characterized
emulsions and homogenization devices need to be carried
out.