(634b) Study of the Interdroplet Interactions and Rheology of Nanoemulsions

Nanoemulsions are metastable colloidal dispersions with a wide range of applications in food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical industries due to their unique structural properties. Tunable properties such as controllable droplet size, volume fraction, composition, and interdroplet interactions provide tools for controlling the structure of nanoemulsions. Despite all unique properties of nanoemulsions, there is a challenge to prepare nanoemulsions with high droplet phase volume fractions using the current methods. Concentrated nanoemulsions can be used to produce nanoporous polymers and increase the efficiency of drug delivery and encapsulation applications. In this research, we develop an effective approach to prepare nanoemulsions up to 60% volume fraction. The rheological properties and interdroplet interactions of the nanoemulsions containing polyethylene glycol diacrylate as the depletant and sodium dodecyl sulfate as the surfactant are studied in this research through changing the volume fraction and concentration of components. The potential of concentrated nanoemulsions as template to produce highly porous polymers is also investigated in this research.

Research interests: structure-property relationship in (nano)emulsions, polymer-surfactant complexation, multiple emulsions, and emulsion-templated polymers