3D printing of Pickering emulsions, Pickering foams and capillary suspensions - A review of stabilization, rheology and applications.

Pickering emulsions and foams as well as capillary suspensions are becoming increasingly more popular as inks for 3D printing. However, a lack of understanding of the bulk rheological properties needed for their application in 3D printing is potentially stifling growth in the area, hence the timeliness of this review. Herein, we review the stability and bulk rheology of these materials as well as the applications of their 3D-printed products.

Influence of particle wettability on foam formation in honey.

The rising level of obesity is often attributed to high sugar and/or fat consumption. Therefore, the food industry is constantly searching for ways to reduce or eliminate sugar or fat in food products. Therefore, honey foam, which contains little sugar and no fat, can be used as cake, cracker or bread spread instead of butter or margarine which contains a substantial amount of fat or jam that contains a substantial amount of sugar.

Growing a particle-stabilized aqueous foam.

Hypothesis: Certain gas-filled colloidal particles expand upon heating. If such particles are surface-active and stabilize aqueous foams, do the foams grow with temperature as particles expand?

Experiments: Aqueous foams were stabilized with hollow micro-spherical particles that are partially wetted by water and grow upon heating. Foams were prepared using two different approaches, both of which led to their growth.

Double oil-in-oil-in-oil emulsions stabilised solely by particles.

The stability of vegetable oil-in-100cS silicone oil-in-vegetable oil V/S/V emulsions to sedimentation and coalescence has been studied. The emulsions contained two types of silica particle of different surface silanol content, 70% and 20% SiOH, which prefer to stabilise 100cS silicone oil-in-vegetable oil S/V and vegetable oil-in-100cS silicone oil V/S emulsions respectively, in systems containing equal proportion of the oils. The emulsions were prepared in a two-step process and were characterised using the drop test and optical microscopy.

Particle-Stabilized Powdered Water-in-Oil Emulsions.

The preparation of powdered water-in-oil (w/o) emulsions by gentle aeration of w/o emulsions stabilized by hydrophobic fumed silica particles in the presence of oleophobic fluorinated clay particles is reported for an alkane and a triglyceride oil. The resultant powders consist of water drops dispersed in oil globules themselves dispersed in air (w/o/a). They contain ∼80 wt % of the precursor w/o emulsion and were stable to phase separation for over 1 year but release oil and water when sheared on a substrate.

Oil-in-oil emulsions stabilised solely by solid particles.

A brief review of the stabilisation of emulsions of two immiscible oils is given. We then describe the use of fumed silica particles coated with either hydrocarbon or fluorocarbon groups in acting as sole stabilisers of emulsions of various vegetable oils with linear silicone oils (PDMS) of different viscosity. Transitional phase inversion of emulsions, containing equal volumes of the two oils, from silicone-in-vegetable (S/V) to vegetable-in-silicone (V/S) occurs upon increasing the hydrophobicity of the particles.

Dry oil powders and oil foams stabilised by fluorinated clay platelet particles.

A series of platelet sericite particles coated to different extents with a fluorinating agent has been characterised and their behaviour in mixtures with air and oil studied. The material which forms by vigorous shaking depends on both the surface tension of the oil and the surface energy of the particles which control their degree of wetting. Oil dispersions are formed in liquids of relatively low tension (<22 mN m(-1)), e.

Direct measurement of contact angles of silica particles in relation to double inversion of pickering emulsions.

In an alkane-water system containing submicrometer silica particles at high pH, double emulsion inversion from oil-in-water (o/w) to water-in-oil (w/o) to oil-in-water can be effected by increasing the concentration of a dichain cationic surfactant in water. The contact angle θ of the particles at the planar oil-water interface has been measured directly using freeze-fracture shadow-casting cryo-scanning electron microscopy, enabling single-particle measurements of high accuracy. θ passes through a maximum with respect to surfactant concentration.