Amphiphilic Nanogels as Versatile Stabilizers for Pickering Emulsions

Cui R, Ickler M, Markovina A, Kanwal S, Vogel N, Klinger D (2024)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2024

Journal

ACS nano American Chemical Society

Book Volume: 18

Pages Range: 25499 - 25511

Journal Issue: 37

DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.4c05143

Abstract

Pickering emulsions (PEs) are stabilized by particles at the water/oil interface and exhibit superior long-term stability compared to emulsions with molecular surfactants. Among colloidal stabilizers, nano/microgels facilitate emulsification and can introduce stimuli responsiveness. While increasing their hydrophobicity is connected to phase inversion from oil-in-water (O/W) to water-in-oil (W/O) emulsions, a predictive model to relate this phase inversion to the molecular structure of the nano/microgel network remains missing. Addressing this challenge, we developed a library of amphiphilic nanogels (ANGs) that enable adjusting their hydrophobicity while maintaining similar colloidal structures. This enabled us to systematically investigate the influence of network hydrophobicity on emulsion stabilization. We found that W/O emulsions are preferred with increasing ANG hydrophobicity, oil polarity, and oil/water ratio. For nonpolar oils, increasing emulsification temperature enabled the formation of W/O PEs that are metastable at room temperature. We connected this behavior to interfacial ANG adsorption kinetics and quantified ANG deformation and swelling in both phases via atomic force microscopy. Importantly, we developed a quantitative method to predict phase inversion by the difference in Flory-Huggins parameters between ANGs with water and oil (χwater - χoil). Overall, this study provides crucial structure-property relations to assist the design of nano/microgels for advanced PEs.

Authors with CRIS profile

Maret Ickler Lehrstuhl für Partikelsynthese (LFG) Nicolas Vogel Lehrstuhl für Partikelsynthese (LFG)

Involved external institutions

Freie Universität Berlin DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Cui, R., Ickler, M., Markovina, A., Kanwal, S., Vogel, N., & Klinger, D. (2024). Amphiphilic Nanogels as Versatile Stabilizers for Pickering Emulsions. ACS nano, 18(37), 25499 - 25511. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.4c05143

MLA:

Cui, Ruiguang, et al. "Amphiphilic Nanogels as Versatile Stabilizers for Pickering Emulsions." ACS nano 18.37 (2024): 25499 - 25511.

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