A pendant drop method for the production of calibrated double emulsions and emulsion gels

作者:Schmit Alexandre*; Courbin Laurent; Marquis Melanie; Renard Denis; Panizza Pascal
来源:RSC Advances, 2014, 4(54): 28504-28510.
DOI:10.1039/c4ra02464h

摘要

We describe a pendant drop method that allows one to produce double emulsions in a controllable way. Using a co-flowing drop-maker, we generate a periodic train made of monodisperse droplets that is directed toward the end of a capillary tube where a pendant drop forms. When this drop detaches from the tip of the capillary under the influence of gravity, it may or may not encapsulate one or several droplets depending on experimental conditions. We discuss the advantages of this method when compared with other techniques described in the literature and we present a simple model that predicts well the mean volume of the outer drops and the mean number of encapsulated droplets per drop as a function of the various physical parameters at play in experiments. We illustrate the high potentiality of this simple method by producing well-calibrated emulsion gels of large sizes and we discuss possible applications.

  • 出版日期2014