COMPUTATIONAL PREDICTION OF THE STABILITY OF LIPID EMULSIONS IN TOTALNUTRIENT ADMIXTURES

The relationships between the stability of lipid emulsions in a number of parenteral total nutrient admixtures (TNAs) and their electrokinet ic properties were examined. Previous studies have attempted to measur e or calculate zeta potentials of lipid emulsions in nutrient admixtur es to rationalize their stability behavior, but there has been no demo nstration that zeta potentials do actually determine emulsion stabilit y or that such computational approaches can be successful. The present study demonstrates that emulsion stability in a range of TNAs is depe ndent on the emulsion zeta potential and also that van der Waals force s, influenced by the presence of glucose, are important. By accounting for these factors we show that it is possible to calculate the stabil ity of TNAs by Deryaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeck-based methods and obta in reasonable agreement with experimental stability data in most syste ms.