Tuning aggregation of microemulsion droplets and silica nanoparticles using solvent mixtures

Temperature induced phase separation of luminescent silica nanoparticles in Triton X-100 solutions

“…The obtained results contribute to rapidly developing sphere of colloid chemistry, dealing with stimuli responsive aggregation and phase behavior of nanoparticles [23,24,[45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52]. The modification of nanoparticles by the background-supporting colloid fluids provides a simple new concept of a stimuli responsive separation, recovery and redistribution of nanoparticles.…”

“…The modification of nanoparticles by the background-supporting colloid fluids provides a simple new concept of a stimuli responsive separation, recovery and redistribution of nanoparticles. The use of stimuli responsibility of surfactant-water-in-oil microemulsions is well developed way to tune the aggregation and phase behavior of inorganic nanoparticles by the external input, such as the changing of temperature [45][46][47], solvent [48][49][50] or irradiation [51,52]. Surfactants play a key role in a stimuli responsibility of the abovementioned systems.…”

Surfactants with colloids: Adsorption or absorption?

“…Silica organosols consist of surfactant-coated nanoparticles which have been transferred into organic solvent [15,24]. Different surfactants have been used to disperse silica nanoparticles, depending on the nature of the solvent and the particle surface chemistry [15].…”

“…The effect of varying the solvent molecular volume on the stability of the dispersions reveals how effective the surfactant layer is in providing stability. There has been some previous work into the effect of different solvents on water-in-oil microemulsions [22,23] and surfactant-stabilized silica organosols [15,24]. There have been no systematic studies on the effect of different solvents on PMMA latexes, but they have been used in various organic solvents in different studies [25][26][27][28].…”

Recent advances in nanoparticle synthesis with reversed micelles

“…anti-solvent, 79,136,158 flocculation by use of a photolyzable surfactant 76,159 or temperature induced separation, 160,161 but at the time of writing this remains a young field and interesting developments can be anticipated. …”