Paper Number
PO66 

Session
Poster Session

Title
Particle-modified structured emulsion droplets

Presentation Date and Time
October 14, 2015 (Wednesday) 6:05

Track / Room
Poster Session / Atrium/Harborview

Authors (Click on name to view author profile)

1. Prileszky, Tamás A. (University of Delaware, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
2. Furst, Eric M. (University of Delaware, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)

Author and Affiliation Lines (in printed abstract book)
Tamás A. Prileszky and Eric M. Furst
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716

Speaker / Presenter 
Prileszky, Tamás A.

Text of Abstract
Emulsions are ubiquitous in consumer products, industry, and science, found wherever two immiscible fluids must be mixed. While exceedingly common, emulsions are almost universally limited by the spherical shape of the underlying droplets, which minimizes contact area between phases. Considering that the efficacy of most emulsions is contingent on fast mass transfer between phases, shape-limited surface area significantly degrades total mass flux between phases.

Enhancing the efficacy of emulsions, then, is an exercise in surface-area augmentation, which can be accomplished through either droplet size reduction or shape change. Achieving the latter case requires that elasticity be introduced to emulsion droplets. Endoskeletal droplets—a class of structured emulsion—are emulsions incorporating a soft crystalline network into the dispersed-phase droplets, allowing anisotropic shape retention while maintaining a free fluid interface. In addition, the low melting temperature of the internal network allows modest temperature increases to eliminate the yield stress, which makes endoskeletal droplets capable of losing their shape as a result of external stimuli.

The existence of a free fluid interface in endoskeletal droplets permits particles to be incorporated into either the interface or internal network. Both endoskeletal droplets and particle-modified emulsions have rich behavior sets that extend the applications of standard emulsions By combining the benefits of particles and endoskeletal droplets, their impacts are intensified: response to external stimuli becomes easier to control, interactions between droplets can be tuned, and particles can be assembled at the interface based on local curvature.