Domain and droplet sizes in emulsions stabilized by colloidal particles

TL;DR

This study uses numerical simulations to analyze how particle concentration and wettability influence droplet sizes and emulsion structures, revealing inverse relationships and effects of particle detachment on emulsion properties.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed numerical approach to quantify droplet sizes in colloid-stabilized emulsions considering wettability and particle concentration effects.

Findings

Inverse relationship between particle concentration and droplet size

Effect of particle detachment on emulsion stability

Comparison of structure function and HK algorithm for domain size measurement

Abstract

Particle-stabilized emulsions are commonly used in various industrial applications. These emulsions can present in different forms, such as Pickering emulsions or bijels, which can be distinguished by their different topologies and rheology. We numerically investigate the effect of the volume fraction and the uniform wettability of the stabilizing spherical particles in mixtures of two fluids. For this, we use the well-established three-dimensional lattice Boltzmann method, extended to allow for the added colloidal particles with non-neutral wetting properties. We obtain data on the domain sizes in the emulsions by using both structure functions and the Hoshen-Kopelman (HK) algorithm, and demonstrate that both methods have their own (dis-)advantages. We confirm an inverse dependence between the concentration of particles and the average radius of the stabilized droplets. Furthermore, we demonstrate the effect of particles detaching from interfaces on the emulsion properties and domain size measurements.