scholarly journals Hierarchical stabilization of emulsions with multi-scale interconnected droplets and ultra-low nanoparticle loadings

Author(s):  
Changqian Cao ◽  
Elsayed Abdelphata ◽  
Aigerim Meimanova ◽  
Jian Wang ◽  
Jiacheng Yu ◽  
...  

Abstract Pickering stabilization by colloidal particles is a common strategy to disperse droplets of one fluid into another fluid in food, cosmetics and chemical industries1-3. For over a century, this kind of stabilization has been governed by constant surface coverage concepts in which particles irreversibly attach to the fluid–fluid interface. The need to cover sufficient interfacial area to prevent coalescence typically results in large loadings of particles, uniform droplet size, creation of rigid interface and closed-cell structure with small total area4-7. Here we report a stabilization mechanism that yields hierarchically structured oil-in-brine emulsions with high interfacial area, deformability, connectivity and long-term stability at unprecedentedly low nanoparticle loadings. The hierarchy in structure is achieved via dynamic cation-particle-droplet interactions in cascaded emulsification, which consists of i) formation of submicron oil droplets (~250 nm) lightly covered by hydrophilic polymer-coated iron oxide nanoparticles and polyvalent metal ions; ii) spontaneous formation of small droplets of nonpolar oil (~1 μm) stabilized by the nanodroplets and cations and iii) attachment of nanodroplet/small droplet clusters to bridge large unarmoured oil droplets (5-50 μm) in macroemulsions. This new mode of stabilization enables much more efficient use of nanoparticles, stabilizing a given size macroemulsion droplet at an order of magnitude smaller particle loading. Moreover, particle loading decreases with the 5/3 power of droplet size, rather than the first power typical of Pickering emulsions. Finally, cations play a novel and essential role in this mechanism, which cannot be accommodated in the conventional Pickering model. Our approach provides a new pathway for templating materials with better control over the structure, and for exploiting applications that are currently inaccessible for Pickering and surfactant stabilized emulsions.

Author(s):  
Chuanwei Miao ◽  
Mani Tayebi ◽  
Wadood Y. Hamad

Medium and high internal phase Pickering emulsions stabilized by cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) have been prepared and the effects of CNC concentration and type of oil phase on the properties of emulsions were studied. The maximum oil phase volume that can be stabilized by CNCs is 87% when the CNC concentration is 0.6 wt.%; this slightly decreases to 83% when the CNC concentration is increased to 1.2 wt.% or higher. In addition, the oil droplets stabilized with 0.6 wt.% CNC suspensions have a larger size than those stabilized with higher concentration CNC suspensions. As evidenced by the change in oil droplet morphology and size, two different emulsion formation mechanisms are proposed. For a CNC concentration of 0.6 wt.%, the extra oil added into the emulsion is accommodated by the expansion of oil droplet size, whereas for CNC concentrations of 1.2 wt.% and higher, the oil is stabilized mainly by the formation of new oil droplets.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Puyuan Wu ◽  
Jun Chen ◽  
Paul E. Sojka ◽  
Yang Li ◽  
Hongjun Cao

Abstract Hundreds of millions of Air conditioning (AC) systems are produced each year. Many of them, especially small AC appliances, use rotary compressors as the system’s heat pump due to their simple structure and high efficiency in a small system. Lubricant oil is used in the rotary compressor to lubricate the moving parts, such as the crankshaft and the rolling piston, and to seal the clearance between the sliding parts, e.g., the clearance between the rolling piston and the cylinder, and the vane and the cylinder. As the compressed refrigerant vapor is discharged from the cylinder through the discharge port, part of lubricant oil in the cylinder would be carried by the vapor and atomize into small droplets in the lower cavity during the discharge process, which is complicated and highly-coupled. Some of these oil droplets would ultimately be exhausted from the compressor and enter other parts in the system, reducing the compressor reliability and deteriorating the heat transfer of the condenser and the evaporator in the system. Our previous research studied the atomization of the lubricant oil during the discharge process in the compressor’s lower cavity. However, the oil droplets’ behavior downstream of the lower cavity is unknown. Thus, studying the oil droplets’ behavior after passing through the rotor/stator can help understand how the rotor/stator would affect the droplet size distribution and movement, thus controlling the flow rate of escaped oil droplets. In this study, a hot gas bypass test rig is built to run a modified rotary compressor with sapphire windows right above the rotor/stator. The oil droplets’ size distribution and movement along the radial direction are obtained at the shaft’s rotating frequency of 30 and 60 Hz by shadowgraph. It is found that droplet size at 30 and 60 Hz varies little in the inner region of the rotor/stator clearance and would increase sharply above the clearance and keep increasing in the outer region of the clearance. More importantly, droplet velocity has a downward velocity component at the inner region and an upward velocity component at the outer region of the rotor/stator clearance. With the result of droplet size distribution and droplet velocity above the rotor/stator, we propose the model of the oil droplet’s path above the rotor/stator, which can be understood as the coupling of a swirling jet and a rotating disk.


Polymers ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 1480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grzegorzewski ◽  
Benhaim ◽  
Alkotzer ◽  
Zelinger ◽  
Yaakov ◽  
...  

A simple and effective way to prepare multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT)//silica hybrid microcapsules (colloidosomes) is presented. These microcapsules have been generated by emulsion templating in a biphasic oil-in-water (o/w) system. Two trialkoxysilanes of complementary polarity, (3-aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (APTES) and dodecyltriethoxysilane (DTES), were used to chemically immobilize the silica nanoparticles at the o/w interface and stabilize the as-generated Pickering emulsions. The effects of varying the o/w ratio and the concentration of the added solids on the type of emulsion formed, the oil droplet size, as well as the emulsion stability have been investigated. The emulsion phase fraction was dependent on the silica content while the droplet size increased with increasing oil volume percentage. A solid shell emerged around the oil droplets from copolymerization between silane monomers. The thickness of the resulting shells was several hundreds of nm. Although MWNTs and silica nanoparticles both were co-assembled at the o/w interface, silica has shown to be the sole stabilizer, with APTES being crucial for the formation of the shell structure. Drop-casting of the emulsion and air-drying led to hierarchical open porous MWNT-silica nanocomposites. These new structures are promising as electrically conductive thin films for variety of applications, such as electro-optics, encapsulation, or chemical sensing.


RSC Advances ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (103) ◽  
pp. 101267-101276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongshan Liang ◽  
Bin Zhou ◽  
Jing Li ◽  
Yun He ◽  
Yaqiong Pei ◽  
...  

Pickering emulsions are widely used as delivery systems in food, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industries for the encapsulation and sustained release of hydrophilic compounds.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 024016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth W North ◽  
E Eric Adams ◽  
Anne E Thessen ◽  
Zachary Schlag ◽  
Ruoying He ◽  
...  

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 2355-2364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shintaro Kawano ◽  
Toshiyuki Kida ◽  
Mitsuru Akashi ◽  
Hirofumi Sato ◽  
Motohiro Shizuma ◽  
...  

Background: Emulsions stabilized by colloidal particles are known as Pickering emulsions. To date, soft microgel particles as well as inorganic and organic particles have been utilized as Pickering emulsifiers. Although cyclodextrin (CD) works as an attractive emulsion stabilizer through the formation of a CD–oil complex at the oil–water interface, a high concentration of CD is normally required. Our research focuses on an effective Pickering emulsifier based on a soft colloidal CD polymer (CD nanogel) with a unique surface-active property. Results: CD nanogels were prepared by crosslinking heptakis(2,6-di-O-methyl)-β-cyclodextrin with phenyl diisocyanate and subsequent immersion of the resulting polymer in water. A dynamic light scattering study shows that primary CD nanogels with 30–50 nm diameter assemble into larger CD nanogels with 120 nm diameter by an increase in the concentration of CD nanogel from 0.01 to 0.1 wt %. The CD nanogel has a surface-active property at the air–water interface, which reduces the surface tension of water. The CD nanogel works as an effective Pickering emulsion stabilizer even at a low concentration (0.1 wt %), forming stable oil-in-water emulsions through interfacial adsorption by the CD nanogels. Conclusion: Soft CD nanogel particles adsorb at the oil–water interface with an effective coverage by forming a strong interconnected network and form a stable Pickering emulsion. The adsorption property of CD nanogels on the droplet surface has great potential to become new microcapsule building blocks with porous surfaces. These microcapsules may act as stimuli-responsive nanocarriers and nanocontainers.


Holzforschung ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (6) ◽  
pp. 489-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Jiang ◽  
Jinzhen Cao ◽  
Wang Wang ◽  
Haiying Shen

AbstractPickering emulsions (emulsions stabilized by solid-state additives) are attractive as they have strong similarities with traditional surfactant-based emulsions. In this study, an oil-in-water (O/W) paraffin Pickering emulsion system with satisfying stability and small droplet size distribution was developed by hydrophilic silica particles and traditional surfactants as mixed emulsifiers. The droplet morphology and size distribution were observed by optical microscopy and a laser particle analyzer. The emulsion stability was improved and the droplet size was reduced after addition of a suitable amount of silica particles. The silica concentration of 1% showed the optimal effect among all the levels observed (0.1, 0.5, 1 and 2%). Wood was impregnated with the prepared emulsion, and the chemical and morphological properties of the product were investigated by Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) combined with energy-dispersed X-ray analysis (SEM-EDXA). Moreover, the hydrophobicity, thermal properties, surface hardness, axial compression strength (CS) and dynamic mechanical properties were tested. The silica was evenly distributed in the wood cell wall and thus there was a synergistic positive effect from the paraffin and silica in the cell wall leading to better hydrophobicity, improved surface hardness and mechanical properties including the thermal stability.


Nanomaterials ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 981 ◽  
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Miastkowska ◽  
Elwira Lasoń ◽  
Elżbieta Sikora ◽  
Katarzyna Wolińska-Kennard

The application of nanoemulsions as a novel delivery system for lipophilic materials, such as essential oils, flavors, and fragrances is one of the growing technologies used in cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and food industries. Their characteristic properties, like small droplet size with high interfacial area, transparent or semi-transparent appearance, low viscosity, and high kinetic stability, make them a perfect vehicle for fragrances, in the perfume industry. They could be a great alternative to water-based perfumes, without alcohol, and solve problems related to the oxidation and low bioavailability of fragrances with other non-alcoholic vehicles of perfumes like pomades or gels. The aim of our study was to develop stable Oil-in-Water (O/W) nanoemulsions that are compatible with selected fragrance compositions, without ethanol, polyols, and ionic surfactants, and to study their physicochemical, microbiological, and dermatological properties. The nano-perfume systems were obtained with a low-energy (Phase Inversion Composition; PIC) and with a high-energy (ultrasound, US) method, taking into account the possibility of moving from the laboratory scale to an industrial scale. The optimized nano-perfume formulations, prepared with different methods, yielded the same physicochemical properties (stability, medium droplet size of the inner phase, polydispersity, viscosity, surface tension, pH, density). Stable systems were obtained with a fragrance composition concentration within 6–15% range. These formulations had a low viscosity and a pH suitable for the skin. Moreover, the obtained results confirmed the protective role of nanoemulsions. The peroxide number measurement (POV) showed that the tested fragrance compositions had a high chemical stability. The results of the microbiological tests confirmed that the obtained products were free of microbiological contamination and were appropriately preserved. The dermatological test results confirmed the safety of the developed preparations.


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