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Title: Bicontinuous structured liquids with sub-micrometre domains using nanoparticle surfactants

Journal Article · · Nature Nanotechnology
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [3]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [5];  [6]
  1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Materials Sciences Division; Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA (United States). Polymer Science and Engineering Dept.; Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Neutron Science Directorate
  2. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Materials Sciences Division
  3. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences
  4. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Neutron Science Directorate
  5. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Materials Sciences Division. The Molecular Foundry
  6. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Materials Sciences Division; Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA (United States). Polymer Science and Engineering Dept.; Beijing Univ. of Chemical Technology (China). Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering; Tohoku Univ., Sendai (Japan). WPI-Advanced Inst. for Materials Research (WPI-AIMR)
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Bicontinuous jammed emulsions (or bijels) are tortuous, interconnected structures of two immiscible liquids, kinetically trapped by colloidal particles that are irreversibly bound to the oil-water interface. A wealth of applications has been proposed for bijels in catalysis, energy storage and molecular encapsulation, but large domain sizes (on the order of 5 μm or larger) and difficulty in fabrication pose major barriers to their use. Here, we show that bijels with sub-micrometre domains can be formed via homogenization, rather than spinodal decomposition. We achieve this by using nanoparticle surfactants: polymers and nanoparticles of complementary functionality (for example, ion-pairing) that bind to one another at the oil-water interface. This allows the stabilization of the bijel far from the demixing point of the liquids, with interfacial tensions on the order of 20 mN m-1. Furthermore, our strategy is extremely versatile, as solvent, nanoparticle and ligand can all be varied.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1423059
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1468343
Journal Information:
Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 12, Issue 11; ISSN 1748-3387
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 96 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (33)

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Cited By (26)

Nanoparticle Assembly at Liquid-Liquid Interfaces: From the Nanoscale to Mesoscale journal July 2018
Building Reconfigurable Devices Using Complex Liquid–Fluid Interfaces journal February 2019
Surfactant Assembly within Pickering Emulsion Droplets for Fabrication of Interior-Structured Mesoporous Carbon Microspheres journal July 2018
Adaptive Structured Pickering Emulsions and Porous Materials Based on Cellulose Nanocrystal Surfactants journal September 2018
Interfacial Activity of Amine‐Functionalized Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxanes (POSS): A Simple Strategy To Structure Liquids journal June 2019
Self‐Assembly of MXene‐Surfactants at Liquid–Liquid Interfaces: From Structured Liquids to 3D Aerogels journal October 2019
Surfactant Assembly within Pickering Emulsion Droplets for Fabrication of Interior-Structured Mesoporous Carbon Microspheres journal July 2018
Electrostatic-Driven Dynamic Jamming of 2D Nanoparticles at Interfaces for Controlled Molecular Diffusion journal August 2018
Adaptive Structured Pickering Emulsions and Porous Materials Based on Cellulose Nanocrystal Surfactants journal September 2018
Interfacial Activity of Amine-Functionalized Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxanes (POSS): A Simple Strategy To Structure Liquids journal June 2019
Stabilizing Liquids Using Interfacial Supramolecular Polymerization journal August 2019
Self‐Assembly of MXene‐Surfactants at Liquid–Liquid Interfaces: From Structured Liquids to 3D Aerogels journal December 2019
Self‐Assembly of Nanoparticles in 2D and 3D: Recent Advances and Future Trends journal August 2019
Harnessing liquid-in-liquid printing and micropatterned substrates to fabricate 3-dimensional all-liquid fluidic devices journal March 2019
Advanced emulsions via noncovalent interaction-mediated interfacial self-assembly journal January 2018
Tuning thin-film bijels with applied external electric fields journal January 2018
Curvature dynamics and long-range effects on fluid–fluid interfaces with colloids journal January 2019
Bi-continuous emulsion using Janus particles journal January 2019
Emerging aqueous two-phase systems: from fundamentals of interfaces to biomedical applications journal January 2020
Designing bijels formed by solvent transfer induced phase separation with functional nanoparticles journal January 2019
Charge-driven interfacial gelation of cellulose nanofibrils across the water/oil interface journal January 2020
Rapid Stabilization of Immiscible Fluids using Nanostructured Interfaces via Surfactant Association journal May 2019
Electrostatic-Driven Dynamic Jamming of 2D Nanoparticles at Interfaces for Controlled Molecular Diffusion journal August 2018
Stabilizing Liquids Using Interfacial Supramolecular Polymerization journal July 2019
Curvature dynamics and long-range effects on fluid-fluid interfaces with colloids text January 2022
Multiscale and Multifunctional Emulsions by Host–Guest Interaction-Mediated Self-Assembly journal May 2018

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77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
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