Guest speaker in Soft Nanoscience group: Joseph Tavacoli

Room 170.048, Adolphe Merkle Institute, Marly

Monday, January 25th, 2010  10:00 h

Bijel Capsules and a mechanism for the destabilisation of Pickering Drops?

Dr. Joseph Tavacoli

School of Physics, University of Edinburgh, UK

Bicontinous interfacially jammed emulsion gels (Bijels) are a new class of soft materials which were theoretically described in 2005 and experimentally verified in 2007. Such gels consist of two immiscible liquids separated by interfacially positioned colloidal particles that afford each liquid a continuous route throughout the structure. This bicontinuity coupled with a very high interfacial area between the liquids has led to speculation that Bijels may have numerous industrial applications (solvent extraction, catalysis). The first Bijel comprised of water, lutidine and fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) tagged silica. This system is now well established and we present a novel system consisting of methylated silica, nitromethane and ethanediol from which we are able to fabricate bijel capsules. These capsules are essentially bijel in oil Pickering emulsions and I will present the effects of particle concentration on bijel domain and capsule size and show how the binary liquid composition alters the internal morphology. I will also demonstrate that the capsules are suitable for triggered release purposes. On a different tack, I will finish by presenting some preliminary research probing whether gravity can induce the destabilisation of Pickering droplets.