Bar-On Roi, Manor Ofer
Applied mathematics department, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 3200000, Israel. Currently at Institut de Biologie de l'École Normale Supérieure ENS, Paris 75005, France.
Department of Chemical Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3200000, Israel.
Langmuir. 2024 Nov 5;40(44):23458-23464. doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c03056. Epub 2024 Oct 27.
We use theory to study the distribution of spherical emulsion oil droplets in water near a lipophilic surface as a guideline for designing membranes for oil/water phase separation. Heterogeneous phase separations are shown in our laboratory using hydrophilic and hydrophobic membrane designs, where the affinity of the membrane surface to one of the phases in the mixture locally increases its concentration. Considering a colloidal emulsion (nano- to microemulsions) of spherical and noncoalescing droplets, we assess the contribution of colloidal forces, i.e., van der Waals, electrical double layer, and hydrophobic interactions and the finite size of the droplets to the accumulation of spherical emulsion droplets near a surface. We use our theory to study an experiment-inspired case study and find that an isolated lipophilic membrane surface in contact with an oil-in-water emulsion supports the oil-enriched emulsion phase in a thin layer near the membrane surface, suggesting that a membrane pore size comparable to this thickness should support oil-enriched emulsion in the membrane pores and hence past the membrane.
我们运用理论来研究亲脂性表面附近水中球形乳液油滴的分布情况，以此作为设计用于油/水相分离的膜的指导原则。在我们实验室中，通过亲水和疏水膜设计展示了非均相分离，其中膜表面对混合物中某一相的亲和力会局部增加该相的浓度。考虑到由球形且不聚并的液滴组成的胶体乳液（纳米至微乳液），我们评估了胶体作用力，即范德华力、双电层力和疏水相互作用，以及液滴的有限尺寸对球形乳液液滴在表面附近聚集的贡献。我们运用理论研究了一个受实验启发的案例，发现与水包油乳液接触的孤立亲脂性膜表面在膜表面附近的薄层中支撑富含油的乳液相，这表明与该厚度相当的膜孔径应能在膜孔中支撑富含油的乳液，从而使乳液透过膜。
