What is emulsifier definition?

Recently, developments in food science and technology are going more rapidly. Processed food products are produced to meet various consumer demands. In several markets, both traditional and at the mall, it is not difficult to find ice cream, sauces, bread with soft texture, mayonnaise, salad dressings, margarine, butter, food, baby formula and other dairy products.
The role of emulsifier
Rapidly development of new food products based emulsions caused by of the dual role of emulsifiers. The phenomenon of a mixture of water and oil tend to be separated can be fused because of "miracle" emulsifier. The compound connector that has two distinct poles, pole of polar and non polar, interacts specifically with the two liquids are not mutually dissolved. Under normal conditions, one liquid dispersed into a liquid that does not dissolve each other. Under abnormal conditions, one liquid dispersed in another liquid as globule whose diameter varies between 0.1 and 100 um. Small scattered globule called discontinuous phase. Meanwhile, the medium of the discontinuous phase is referred to as the continuous phase.
Ability emulsifier lowers the surface tension is a way to break the hydrogen bonds at the surface through the hydrophilic head drawdown at the water surface with a hydrophobic tail stretched away from the water surface.
When oil and water mixture shaken, then it provides the mechanical energy, so that droplets of oil dispersed into water and the emulsion is formed. However, this emulsion system is unstable and soon rejoined the oil droplets. In order for oil or water droplets dispersed in both the long time it takes the presence of an appropriate emulsifier.
The definition of emulsifier
Thus, by definition, emulsifiers is a compound having surface activity (surface-active agents) so as to lower the surface tension (surface tension) between the air-liquid and liquid-liquid contained in a system (in this case is a system of food).
Types of emulsifiers and examples of emulsifiers
Examples of emulsions in food systems include milk, margarine, and ice cream. While in general, emulsifiers consist of a natural emulsifier and artificial emulsifier (synthetic emulsifier). Natural emulsifier made from ingredients derived from nature. Eg from soy beans, egg yolks and so on. In the soybean seed, its oil content are very high, in addition to water. Both are connected by a substance called lecithin. The material is then extracted or taken to be emulsifiers that can be used in processing products.
Actually, lecithin is naturally present also in other grains as well as in animal products, like eggs and brains. But the lecithin that is easy and inexpensive to use is found in soybean seeds.
If lecithin is derived from soy beans, then the terms of the halal will be safer. But it is possible to extract lecithin from other materials, such as eggs and animal brains. In addition to increasing the effectiveness of emulsifying, the lecithin is sometimes added with a specific enzyme. This enzyme also needs to watch out its halal status, because it can come from sources that aren’t considered as halal.
The artificial or synthetic emulsifiers are derived from a human engineering to produce a bridge between oil and water. Although it is called as synthetic, but it is not entirely derived from synthetic materials. Only its manufacturing process are designed man-made, but the materials are often derived from natural ingredients.
Emulsifier in the manufacture of emulsion
The process of making emulsion can be done in various ways, such as by using a homogenizer. In this homogenization process, the liquid will be split into smaller droplets followed by droplet covering process by emulsifiers. If the droplet covering by the emulsifier is so slow then the droplet will be incorporated back (recoalescence) so that the droplets are formed tend to be large in size. So we need a proper selection of emulsifiers for the type of emulsion to be formed.

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