Amphiphilic Janus Particles for Aerobic Alcohol Oxidation in Oil Foams

Amphiphilic Janus silica particles, tunable with oleophobic-oleophilic properties and low fluorine content (8 wt % F), exhibited prominent foamability for a variety of aromatic alcohols at low particle concentrations (<1 wt %) compared to randomly functionalized silica particles. When selectively loaded with Pd nanoparticles on the oleophilic hemisphere, the particles displayed more than a 2-fold increase in catalytic activity for the aerobic oxidation of benzyl alcohol compared to nonfoam bulk catalysis under ambient O2 pressure. The particles were conveniently recycled with high foamability and catalytic activity maintained for at least five consecutive runs.

Ethanol Foams Stabilized by Isobutyl-Based POSS-Organosilica Dual-Particle Assemblies

Nonaqueous foams in low-surface tension solvents (<25 mN·m-1) are highly desired for applications in fire extinguishers and detoxification gels. However, their formation is a Holy Grail of the chemical industry due to the need for stabilizers with low surface energy and high recyclability. Herein, we disclose a new strategy to generate abundant foams in ethanol and a variety of low-surface tension solvents relying on the interfacial coadsorption of two different particles. The particles consist of surface-active fluorinated silica particles, used as a stabilizer, and a novel amphiphilic polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) decorated with isobutyl cage substituents, used as a frother. The interaction between POSS and fluorinated particles at the ethanol-air interface was thoroughly investigated by combining physicochemical methods (contact angle, dynamic surface tension, and dynamic light scattering methods) and catalytic tests using the model aerobic oxidation reaction of benzyl alcohol. Both particles could be conveniently recycled for at least 5 consecutive runs with high foamability and catalytic activity.

Nonaqueous Emulsion Polycondensation Enabled by a Self‐Assembled Cage‐like Surfactant

Nonaqueous emulsions are crucial for a range of applications based on water‐sensitive systems such as controlled polymerizations requiring anhydrous reaction conditions and the stabilization of readily hydrolyzable reagents or pharmacologically active components. However, defined molecular surfactants to stabilize such nonaqueous emulsions are scarce. We introduce a self‐assembled coordination cage, decorated with cholesterol functionalities, to serve as a molecular surfactant for various oil‐in‐oil emulsions of immiscible organic solvents. While the positively charged cage forms the amphiphile's polar moiety, the non‐polar cholesterol appendices can bend in a common direction to stabilize the emulsion. Templated by the droplets, polycondensation reactions were carried out to produce microstructured polyurethane and polyurea materials of different particle sizes and morphologies. Further, the amphiphilic cage can encapsulate a guest molecule and the resulting host‐guest assembly was also examined as a surfactant. In addition, the aggregation behavior of the amphiphilic cage in an aqueous medium was examined.

Pickering Interfacial Catalysis for Aerobic Alcohol Oxidation in Oil Foams

Oil foams stabilized by surface-active catalytic particles bearing fluorinated chains and Pd nanoparticles allowed fast and efficient aerobic oxidation of a variety of aromatic and aliphatic alcohols compared to bulk catalytic systems at ambient O₂ pressure. High foam stability was achieved at low particle concentration (<1 wt %) provided that the contact angle locates in the range 41°-73°. The catalytic performance was strongly affected by the foaming properties, with 7-10 times activity increase in pure O₂ compared to nonfoam systems. Intermediate foam stability was required to achieve good catalytic activity, combining large interfacial area and high gas exchange rate. Particles were conveniently recycled with high foamability and catalytic efficiency maintained for at least seven consecutive runs.

Overcoming hydrolytic degradation challenges in topical delivery: non-aqueous nano-emulsions

INTRODUCTION

Non-aqueous nano-emulsions (NANEs) are colloidal lipid-based dispersions with nano-sized droplets formed by mixing two immiscible phases, none of which happens to be an aqueous phase. Their ability to incorporate water and oxygen sensitive drugs without any susceptibility to degradation makes them the optimum dosage form for such candidates. In NANEs, polar liquids or polyols replace the aqueous phase while surfactants remain same as used in conventional emulsions. They are a part of the nano-emulsion family albeit with substantial difference in composition and application.

AREAS COVERED

The present review provides a brief insight into the strategies of loading water-sensitive drugs into NANEs. Further advancement in these anhydrous systems with the use of solid particulate surfactants in the form of Pickering emulsions is also discussed.

EXPERT OPINION

NANEs offer a unique platform for delivering water-sensitive drugs by loading them in anhydrous formulation. The biggest advantage of NANEs vis-à-vis the other nano-cargos is that they can also be prepared without using equipment-intensive techniques. However, the use of NANEs in drug delivery is quite limited. Looking at the small number of studies available in this direction, a need for further research in this field is required to explore this delivery system further.

Foaming of Oils: Effect of Poly(dimethylsiloxanes) and Silica Nanoparticles

Foaming of oils often confronts researchers in food, cosmetics, and petrochemical industries. Destabilization or stabilization of nonaqueous foams is fundamentally crucial for process control and product quality. Antifoams can be a useful method to control excessive foams. Nonetheless, the foaming mechanisms and the selection criteria of the most common antifoam, poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) oils, are not thoroughly discussed. The study of inorganic colloidal particles as foam stabilizers has drawn particular attention over the past years practically and academically, yet only a small part of literature focuses on nonaqueous foams. For these reasons, we have studied the effects of PDMS oils and silica nanoparticles on the foaming of oils. We find that the performance of silicone oils as crude oil antifoams is firmly related to PDMS viscosity and crude oil composition presumably because the solubilization of PDMS oils in hydrocarbons reduces with increasing viscosity of the polymers and the hydrocarbons. The findings also illustrate that nanoparticle hydrophobicity and concentration are the primary factors for the foam stabilization effect.

A Robust Oil-in-Oil Emulsion for the Nonaqueous Encapsulation of Hydrophilic Payloads

Compartmentalized structures widely exist in cellular systems (organelles) and perform essential functions in smart composite materials (microcapsules, vasculatures, and micelles) to provide localized functionality and enhance materials' compatibility. An entirely water-free compartmentalization system is of significant value to the materials community as nonaqueous conditions are critical to packaging microcapsules with water-free hydrophilic payloads while avoiding energy-intensive drying steps. Few nonaqueous encapsulation techniques are known, especially when considering just the scalable processes that operate in batch mode. Herein, we report a robust oil-in-oil Pickering emulsion system that is compatible with nonaqueous interfacial reactions as required for encapsulation of hydrophilic payloads. A major conceptual advance of this work is the notion of the partitioning inhibitor-a chemical agent that greatly reduces the payload's distribution between the emulsion's two phases, thus providing appropriate conditions for emulsion-templated interfacial polymerization. As a specific example, an immiscible hydrocarbon-amine pair of liquids is emulsified by the incorporation of guanidinium chloride (GuHCl) as a partitioning inhibitor into the dispersed phase. Polyisobutylene (PIB) is added into the continuous phase as a viscosity modifier for suitable modification of interfacial polymerization kinetics. The combination of GuHCl and PIB is necessary to yield a robust emulsion with stable morphology for 3 weeks. Shell wall formation was accomplished by interfacial polymerization of isocyanates delivered through the continuous phase and polyamines from the droplet core. Diethylenetriamine (DETA)-loaded microcapsules were isolated in good yield, exhibiting high thermal and chemical stabilities with extended shelf-lives even when dispersed into a reactive epoxy resin. The polyamine phase is compatible with a variety of basic and hydrophilic actives, suggesting that this encapsulation technology is applicable to other hydrophilic payloads such as polyols, aromatic amines, and aromatic heterocyclic bases. Such payloads are important for the development of extended pot or shelf life systems and responsive coatings that report, protect, modify, and heal themselves without intervention.

Non-aqueous foams: Current understanding on the formation and stability mechanisms

The most common types of liquid foams are aqueous ones, and correspond to gas bubbles dispersed in an aqueous liquid phase. Non-aqueous foams are also composed of gas bubbles, but dispersed in a non-aqueous solvent. In the literature, articles on such non-aqueous foams are scarce; however, the study of these foams has recently emerged, especially because of their potential use as low calories food products and of their increasing importance in various other industries (such as, for instance, the petroleum industry). Non-aqueous foams can be based on three different foam stabilizers categories: specialty surfactants, solid particles and crystalline particles. In this review, we only focus on recent advances explaining how solid and crystalline particles can lead to the formation of non-aqueous foams, and stabilize them. In fact, as discussed here, the foaming is both driven by the physical properties of the liquid phase and by the interactions between the foam stabilizer and this liquid phase. Therefore, for a given stabilizer, different foaming and stability behavior can be found when the solvent is varied. This is different from aqueous systems for which the foaming properties are only set by the foam stabilizer. We also highlight how these non-aqueous foams systems can easily become responsive to temperature changes or by the application of light.

Particles adsorbed at various non-aqueous liquid-liquid interfaces

Particles adsorbed at liquid interfaces are commonly used to stabilise water-oil Pickering emulsions and water-air foams. The fundamental understanding of the physics of particles adsorbed at water-air and water-oil interfaces is improving significantly due to novel techniques that enable the measurement of the contact angle of individual particles at a given interface. The case of non-aqueous interfaces and emulsions is less studied in the literature. Non-aqueous liquid-liquid interfaces in which water is replaced by other polar solvents have properties similar to those of water-oil interfaces. Nanocomposites of non-aqueous immiscible polymer blends containing inorganic particles at the interface are of great interest industrially and consequently more work has been devoted to them. By contrast, the behaviour of particles adsorbed at oil-oil interfaces in which both oils are immiscible and of low dielectric constant (ε<3) is scarcely studied. Hydrophobic particles are required to stabilise these oil-oil emulsions due to their irreversible adsorption, high interfacial activity and elastic shell behaviour.

Stabilization of a non-aqueous self-double-emulsifying delivery system of rutin by fat crystals and nonionic surfactants: preparation and bioavailability study

Literature examples of non-aqueous Pickering emulsions stabilized by fat crystals are very rare. Moreover, the applications of rutin are limited due to its low solubility in both water and oils (less than 0.10 mg g^-1 and 0.25 mg g^-1, respectively). Thus, herein, we developed an optimum formulation of a non-aqueous self-double-emulsifying delivery system (SDEDS) containing rutin and evaluated its oral bioavailability. The new formulation stabilized by fat crystals (glycerol monostearate, GMS) and nonionic surfactants was prepared via a two-step emulsification process. The presence of a mixture of GMS crystals and nonionic surfactants effectively improves the stability of the emulsions. The non-aqueous SDEDS spontaneously forms oil-in-oil-in-water (O/O/W) double emulsions in the gastrointestinal environment with the inner oil phase mainly containing the active ingredients. It is stable at both 4 °C and 25 °C for 30 days and could enhance the dissolution properties of the active ingredients. Furthermore, the protection of rutin against digestion-mediated precipitation was observed when the formulation contained a high concentration of GMS crystals. The oral absolute bioavailability of rutin obtained from SDEDS (8.62%) is 1.76-fold higher than that of the actives suspension (4.90%). Thus, the non-aqueous SDEDS is an attractive candidate for the encapsulation of water-insoluble and simultaneously oil-insoluble nutrients (such as rutin) and for use in oral delivery applications.

Colloidal Particles at a Range of Fluid-Fluid Interfaces

The study of solid particles residing at fluid-fluid interfaces has become an established area in surface and colloid science recently, experiencing a renaissance since around 2000. Particles at interfaces arise in many industrial products and processes such as antifoam formulations, crude oil emulsions, aerated foodstuffs, and flotation. Although they act in many ways like traditional surfactant molecules, they offer distinct advantages also, and the area is now multidisciplinary, involving research in the fundamental science and potential applications. In this Feature Article, the flavor of some of this interest is given on the basis of recent work from our own group and includes the behavior of particles at oil-water, air-water, oil-oil, air-oil, and water-water interfaces. The materials capable of being prepared by assembling various kinds of particles at fluid interfaces include particle-stabilized emulsions, particle-stabilized aqueous and oil foams, dry liquids, liquid marbles, and powdered emulsions.

Retracted Article: Stable ‘arrested’ non-aqueous edible foams based on food emulsifiers

Stable oil foams with structured air–oil interfaces and high overrun (φ_air ≫ 0.5) were fabricated using edible emulsifiers (sucrose esters and lecithin).

Liquid marbles: topical context within soft matter and recent progress

The study of particle stabilized interfaces has a long history in terms of emulsions, foams and related dry powders. The same underlying interfacial energy principles also allow hydrophobic particles to encapsulate individual droplets into a stable form as individual macroscopic objects, which have recently been called "Liquid Marbles". Here we discuss conceptual similarities to superhydrophobic surfaces, capillary origami, slippery liquids-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS) and Leidenfrost droplets. We provide a review of recent progress on liquid marbles, since our earlier Emerging Area article (Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 5473-5481), and speculate on possible future directions from new liquid-infused liquid marbles to microarray applications. We highlight a range of properties of liquid marbles and describe applications including detecting changes in physical properties (e.g. pH, UV, NIR, temperature), use for gas sensing, synthesis of compounds/composites, blood typing and cell culture.