Photo-responsive Pickering emulsions triggered by in-situ pH modulation using a photoacid generator.

Hypothesis: Pickering emulsions that respond to changes in pH by the addition of acid or alkali have been extensively studied, but the development of photo-responsive Pickering emulsions has been more challenging. This study attempts to demonstrate a novel approach to achieve photo-responsiveness in Pickering emulsions by incorporating a photoacid generator (PAG) into the oil phase. Upon UV irradiation, the PAG is expected to release protons (H), which can then regulate the pH of the emulsion system and control its stability.

Facile Preparation of Silica/Tannic Acid/Zein Microcapsules Templated from Non-Aqueous Pickering Emulsions and their Application in Cargo Protection.

Microcapsules have attracted significant attention in academia and industry due to their unique properties for protecting and controlling the release of active substances. However, based on water-insoluble biopolymers, developing a straightforward approach to prepare microcapsules with improved biocompatibility and functional shells remains a great challenge. In this study, zein, a water-insoluble protein, is employed to prepare robust microcapsules facilely using oil-in-aqueous ethanol Pickering emulsions as templates.

Smectic C Self-Assembly in Mesogen-Free Liquid Crystalline Chiral Polyethers with Sulfonylated Methyl-Branched Side Chains.

To realize advanced electrical applications for ferroelectric liquid crystalline polymers, high spontaneous polarization (P ) is highly desired. However, current ferroelectric liquid crystalline polymers usually exhibit a low P . In this work, mesogen-free, chiral polyethers containing sulfonylated methyl-branched alkyl side chains with a (CH ) O spacer between the sulfonyl and the branched alkyl groups are designed and synthesized.

Nanometer-precision non-local deformation reconstruction using nanodiamond sensing.

Spatially resolved information about material deformation upon loading is critical to evaluating mechanical properties of materials, and to understanding mechano-response of live systems. Existing techniques may access local properties of materials at nanoscale, but not at locations away from the force-loading positions. Moreover, interpretation of the local measurement relies on correct modeling, the validation of which is not straightforward.

Correlating the effect of co-monomer content with responsiveness and interfacial activity of soft particles with stability of corresponding smart emulsions.

Hypothesis: This study presents the synthesis and characterization of Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-co-methacrylic acid (PNIPAM-co-MAA) based multi-responsive soft microgel particles employed as "smart emulsifiers" for controlled stabilization and breakage of the decane-in-water Pickering emulsions. These soft microgel particles can act as reversible stabilizers, i.e.

Microgel Particles at Interfaces: Phenomena, Principles, and Opportunities in Food Sciences.

The use of soft microgel particles for stabilizing emulsions has captured increasing attention across a wide range of disciplines in the past decades. Being soft, the nanoparticles, which are spherical in solution, undergo a structure change when adsorbed at the oil-water interface. This morphology change leads to the special dynamic properties of interface layers and packing structures, which then alter the interfacial tension and rheological properties of the interface.

Hybrid nanodiamond quantum sensors enabled by volume phase transitions of hydrogels.

Diamond nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center-based magnetometry provides a unique opportunity for quantum bio-sensing. However, NV centers are not sensitive to parameters such as temperature and pressure, and immune to many biochemical parameters such as pH and non-magnetic biomolecules. Here, we propose a scheme that can potentially enable the measurement of various biochemical parameters using diamond quantum sensing, by employing stimulus-responsive hydrogels as a spacing transducer in-between a nanodiamond (ND, with NV centers) and magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs).

Comparing the Relative Interfacial Affinity of Soft Colloids With Different Crosslinking Densities in Pickering Emulsions.

Pickering emulsions prepared by various kinds of soft colloids such as the poly(-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM)-based microgels, have been studied for decades in order to fabricate stimuli-responsive emulsions. It has been generally viewed that the interfacial properties of the microgel monolayers and the emulsion stability are dominated by the softness or deformability of the microgel particles. However, there is still no convenient way to characterize the adsorption/desorption energy of the microgels at the interface although this is an essential topic for microgel-stabilized emulsions.

A confocal microscopy study of micron-sized poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) microgel particles at the oil-water interface and anisotopic flattening of highly swollen microgel.

Hypothesis: Responsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) microgel (PNIPAM microgel) stabilized Pickering emulsions were investigated in this study. A recent theoretical study of other researchers has suggested that large soft particles at the oil/water interface are less deformable than their small counterparts. Therefore, we expected that our micron-sized microgel particles might not significantly deform at the oil/water interface.

Controlling the synthesis and characterization of micrometer-sized PNIPAM microgels with tailored morphologies.

This Article presents the controlling synthesis and characterization of micrometer-sized, multiresponsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-methacrylic acid) (PNIPAM-MAA) microgel particles. By combining semibatch and temperature-programmed surfactant-free precipitation polymerization, we have successfully developed a novel approach to the preparation of temperature- and pH-responsive PNIPAM microgels with a dense-shell (DS), dense-core (DC), or homogeneous (HOMO) structure. We then investigated the interaction between the synthesized microgels and some fluorescent dye molecules using confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM).

Preparation of responsive micrometer-sized microgel particles with a highly functionalized shell.

We describe a facile approach for the synthesis of micrometer-sized (∼3.5 μm), pH-responsive microgel particles, which have functional carboxylic acid groups concentrated in the shell. The large size offers the possibility to directly study the interactions between individual, isolated microgel particles with active ingredients by optical microscopy.