Anisotropic Particles Templated by Cerberus Emulsions

Abstract

A strategy to the batch-scale fabrication of anisotropic particles with diverse morphologies and various chemical compositions is reported by applying the highly structured fluids of Cerberus emulsions as templates. The Cerberus emulsions are produced simply by traditional one-step vortex mixing the surfactant aqueous solution with three immiscible oils which are selectively photocurable or incurable. Anisotropic particles are subsequently fabricated by UV-induced polymerization. The diversity in the morphology of the particles is provided by the various controllable geometries of the Cerberus droplets. Various droplet morphologies of "engulfed-linear", "partial-engulfed-linear", and "linear-singlet" are obtained by employing various oil combinations. Precise control of the volume fraction of each segment within the droplet is realized on the basis of the three-phase diagram of the oils. The wide size range is achieved from hundreds of micrometers continuously down to nanometers, with topology remaining. In addition, for a matrix droplet with a fixed morphology, the multiplicity in the chemical composition and in the geometry of the resultant anisotropic particles is realized by selectively polymerizing one, two, or three of the oil lobes. Morphologies of "crescent moon", "etched-Janus", and "sandwich-Janus" are obtained with homogeneous or multiple distinct chemical compositions. The reported strategy is universal and can be extended to a huge family of polymeric anisotropic particles.

Ionic Janus Liquid Droplets Assembled and Propelled by Electric Field

“…Presently, the patch size, direction, and orientation are not controllable using our simple emulsification technique but it is not beyond logical extension to tailor high‐order droplet generations by known microfluidic methods . This method to produce multiple patches is simpler than those based on metal deposition, asymmetric synthesis or surface modification, and forming liquid shells around solid particles, though at the present state of development it is less well controlled.…”

Ionic Janus Liquid Droplets Assembled and Propelled by Electric Field

“…Presently,t he patch size,d irection, and orientation are not controllable using our simple emulsification technique but it is not beyond logical extension to tailor high-order droplet generations by known microfluidic methods. [29][30][31][32] This method to produce multiple patches is simpler than those based on metal deposition, [6,9] asymmetric synthesis or surface modification, [26,33,34] and forming liquid shells around solid particles, [7,35] though at the present state of development it is less well controlled.…”

“…Bright-field microscopy also could be used to image the Janus geometry (IL with dye appears darker) but with less contrast. [29][30][31][32] This method to produce multiple patches is simpler than those based on metal deposition, [6,9] asymmetric synthesis or surface modification, [26,33,34] and forming liquid shells around solid particles, [7,35] though at the present state of development it is less well controlled. [26] This morphological transition is am etastable state owing to interfacial tension balance between the two fluids which can be altered by changing the surfactant.…”

Electroinduced Reconfiguration of Complex Emulsions for Fabrication of Polymer Particles with Tunable Morphology

“…Subsequently, emulsions containing more internal phases were developed, [ 36 ] especially, the complex emulsions, which have rich morphological characteristics and can produce more diversified anisotropic particles by selecting appropriate monomers and polymerization. [ 20,37 ] However, most of the approaches reported so far require varying the amount of each component in the system to prepare the desired particle morphology, such as, changing the mass ratio between different types of surfactants or the volume ratio between the two insoluble internal phases, which are inefficient and limited with respect to anisotropic particles shape. To our knowledge, the use of stimulus‐responsive complex emulsions to fabricate anisotropic particles with greatly adjustable morphology in a single system has not been reported.…”