Field-Induced Breakup of Emulsion Droplets Stabilized by Colloidal Particles

TL;DR

This study uses simulations to analyze how external forces like gravity can cause particle-stabilized emulsion droplets to break up, revealing size-dependent critical forces and collective destabilization mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation approach to understand the size-dependent breakup behavior of colloid-stabilized droplets under external forces.

Findings

Critical force decreases with droplet size as N^{-1/2}

Breakup involves collective destabilization of a particle raft

Force acts cumulatively, not individually, on particles

Abstract

We simulate the response of a particle-stabilized emulsion droplet in an external force field, such as gravity, acting equally on all $N$ particles. We show that the field strength required for breakup (at fixed initial area fraction) decreases markedly with droplet size, because the forces act cumulatively, not individually, to detach the interfacial particles. The breakup mode involves the collective destabilization of a solidified particle raft occupying the lower part of the droplet, leading to a critical force per particle that scales approximately as $N^{-1/2}$.