HYDROGEL STABILIZED RESPONSIVE COMPLEX EMULSIONS
Open Access
- Author:
- Cho, Seung Wook
- Graduate Program:
- Materials Science and Engineering
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- January 10, 2018
- Committee Members:
- Lauren Dell Zarzar, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
James Hansell Adair, Committee Member
Robert John Hickey III, Committee Member
Michael Anthony Hickner, Committee Member - Keywords:
- encapsulation
emulsions
complex emulsions
calcium alginate - Abstract:
- Emulsions, which are mixtures of immiscible fluids, have found widespread interest and use in fields and applications ranging from medicine, food, and cosmetics to optics. Complex emulsions, in which the droplets contain multiple fluids, are especially exciting due to the correlation between droplet structure and properties. Recently, a method to reconfigure the morphology of complex droplets containing hydrocarbon and fluorocarbon oils in water was demonstrated.1 Such droplets display unique physical and chemical properties rendering them applicable in areas such as sensors and tunable optics. However, emulsions are inherently not stable for extended time periods resulting in a critical obstacle for various applications. Traditional encapsulation approaches that are useful for droplet stabilization would render these hydrocarbon and fluorocarbon droplets non-responsive, thereby negating their most advantageous properties. In this project we aim to address this stability issue by fabricating a thin spherical hydrogel shell around droplets as a barrier to prevent coalescence while simultaneously retaining the droplets’ responsive behavior. Hydrogels are interesting materials to explore as emulsion stabilizers because they can be both interfacially active and chemically and mechanically tunable. Herein, we will create hydrogel shells composed of both ionically and covalently crosslinked alginate. In this work, we will explore the effects of a spherical hydrogel shell encapsulating the complex emulsion droplet on the droplet’s responsive behavior. We delve into the hydrogel interfacial behavior, how the droplets respond to the hydrogel and small molecule surfactants in combination, and characterize the hydrogel shell using confocal microscopy and optical microscopy.