Abstract: By approximately treating emulsion as plate model and introducing the functional theory into the calculation of electric double layer (EDL) interaction, the stability of food emulsion has been investigated. The interaction energies of two identical parallel plates were calculated at general potential and simultaneously the results were compared those of from the Debye-Hückel (DH) and the numerical methods respectively. The relationships between energy and relevant parameters, such as surface potential, charge number, concentration of electrolyte and temperature were also studied. There was a perfect consistency between obtained and experimental results.

Key words: emulsion, interaction energy, electric double layer (EDL), functional theory