Microemulsification of orange peel oil (OPO) with different surfactants (T20, T60, T80 and lecithin) and cosurfactants (ethanol, propanol and butanol) to encapsulate OPO were studied in 1:1 surfactant:cosurfactant ratio and their phase diagrams were constructed. The monophase microemulsion regions were analysed by viscosity and conductivity measurements. The particle sizes of microemulsions were determined using dynamic light scattering (DLS). It was found that microemulsion forming ability of OPO was dependent to the surfactant and cosurfactant type. Between the surfactants, T60 and T80 exhibited the highest ability in forming microemulsion with OPO. The conductivity measurements of microemulsion systems showed that the conductivity of the microemulsions depends upon water content and O/W microemulsions formed at higher water content. The viscosity results showed that the viscosity of the solutions increased at first and then showed a sharp declining. Dynamic light scattering results showed that the particle sizes of the OPO capsules in O/W microemulsions with 1% wt. oil were less than 20 nm. It can be concluded that T60 is a good surfactant in terms of OPO entrapment in an aqueous solution as it gave the broadest region of O/W microemulsion.

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