The Location of Vanillin in a Food Emulsion System

The partition of vanillin between the three phases, water, oil and lamellar liquid crystal, in an emulsion of water, lecithin and soybean oil was determined by UV analysis. With the phases separated, the aqueous phase showed a maximum vanillin solubility of 1.0%, the oil phase 3% and the liquid crystalline phase 8.0%. The partition of vanillin between different phases reflected those maximum solubilities. So was a concentration ratio of 2.8 found for the partition between oil and water in the absence of lecithin. The presence of lecithin significantly changed this ratio because the lecithin formed liposomes in the water carrying higher concentrations of vanillin.