Bicontinuous emulsions

Bicontinuous emulsions are obtained when the percentage by weight of the two phases is close to 50%. 

In the first case, the BCD s droplets dispersed in the Diesel oil (continuous medium) form the emulsion. In the second case Diesel oil s droplets are dispersed in BCO (continuous medium). The third case s description is more complex in fact theoretically there are no droplets and Diesel oil and water phases are continuous and form a bicontinuous emulsion". 

Type III microemulsions, in which the aqueous and oleic phases are in equilibrium with a third, surfactant-rich, phase called the middle-phase microemulsion, which can contain bicontinuous emulsion. This is illustrated in Figure 3.29 [135]. 

The viscosity of bicontinuous microemulsions is less straightforward to describe theoretically than systems of isolated aggregates. In general, bicontinuous emulsions also exhibit low viscosity and simple Newtonian flow behavior, but it should be instructive to compare their rheological properties to that of O/W or W/O microemulsions, which in the phase diagram border on the bicontinuous microemulsion. 

PHEMA solubility decreases with increasing ion concentration. As a result, Mikos et al. used salt solutions of varying ionic strength to dilute the reaction mixtures (Liu et al., 2000). It was noted that increasing the ion content of the aqueous solution to 0.7M, interconnected macropores were obtained at 60 vol% water. Surfactants may also be used to control the network pore structure. However, not much work has been done in this area, since surfactants typically work to reduce the surface repulsions between the two phases and form a uniform emulsion. These smaller emulsion droplets when gelled will create a network with an even smaller porous structure. Yet, this is still a promising area of exploration, since it may be possible to form alternate phase structures such as bicontinuous phases, which would be ideal for cellular invasion. 

In activated sludge, 80.6% degraded after a 47-h time period (Pal et al., 1980). Chemical/Physical. Zhang and Rusling (1993) evaluated the bicontinuous microemulsion of surfactant/oil/water as a medium for the dechlorination of polychlorinated biphenyls by electrochemical catalytic reduction. The microemulsion (20 mL) contained didodecyldi-methylammonium bromide, dodecane, and water at 21, 57, and 22 wt %, respectively. The catalyst used was zinc phthalocyanine (2.5 nM). When PCB-1221 (72 mg), the emulsion and catalyst were subjected to a current of mA/cm on 11.2 cm lead electrode for 10 h, a dechlorination yield of 99% was achieved. Reaction products included a monochlorobiphenyl (0.9 mg), biphenyl, and reduced alkylbenzene derivatives. 

Many reports are available where the cationic surfactant CTAB has been used to prepare gold nanoparticles [127-129]. Giustini et al. [130] have characterized the quaternary w/o micro emulsion of CTAB/n-pentanol/ n-hexane/water. Some salient features of CTAB/co-surfactant/alkane/water system are (1) formation of nearly spherical droplets in the L2 region (a liquid isotropic phase formed by disconnected aqueous domains dispersed in a continuous organic bulk) stabilized by a surfactant/co-surfactant interfacial film. (2) With an increase in water content, L2 is followed up to the water solubilization failure, without any transition to bicontinuous structure, and (3) at low Wo, the droplet radius is smaller than R° (spontaneous radius of curvature of the interfacial film) but when the droplet radius tends to become larger than R° (i.e., increasing Wo), the microemulsion phase separates into a Winsor II system. 

Different kinds of dispersions can be formed. Most of them have important applications and have special names (Table 1.1). While there are only five types of interface, we can distinguish ten types of disperse system because we have to discriminate between the continuous, dispersing (external) phase and the dispersed (inner) phase. In some cases this distinction is obvious. Nobody will, for instance, mix up fog with a foam although in both cases a liquid and a gas are involved. In other cases the distinction between continuous and inner phase cannot be made because both phases might form connected networks. Some emulsions for instance tend to form a bicontinuous phase, in which both phases form an interwoven network. 

Emulsions are two-phase systems formed from oil and water by the dispersion of one liquid (the internal phase) into the other (the external phase) and stabilized by at least one surfactant. Microemulsion, contrary to submicron emulsion (SME) or nanoemulsion, is a term used for a thermodynamically stable system characterized by a droplet size in the low nanorange (generally less than 30 nm). Microemulsions are also two-phase systems prepared from water, oil, and surfactant, but a cosurfactant is usually needed. These systems are prepared by a spontaneous process of self-emulsification with no input of external energy. Microemulsions are better described by the bicontinuous model consisting of a system in which water and oil are separated by an interfacial layer with significantly increased interface area. Consequently, more surfactant is needed for the preparation of microemulsion (around 10% compared with 0.1% for emulsions). Therefore, the nonionic-surfactants are preferred over the more toxic ionic surfactants. Cosurfactants in microemulsions are required to achieve very low interfacial tensions that allow self-emulsification and thermodynamic stability. Moreover, cosurfactants are essential for lowering the rigidity and the viscosity of the interfacial film and are responsible for the optical transparency of microemulsions [136]. 

Another interesting heterogeneous polymerization using macromonomers is a microemulsion copolymerization to produce particles 10-100 nm in diameter. Gan and coworkers [150] have prepared transparent nanostructured polymeric materials by direct polymerization of bicontinuous micro emulsions consisting... 

Emulsions made by agitation of pure immiscible liquids are usually very unstable and break within a short time. Therefore, a surfactant, mostly termed emulsifier, is necessary for stabilisation. Emulsifiers reduce the interfacial tension and, hence, the total free energy of the interface between two immiscible phases. Furthermore, they initiate a steric or an electrostatic repulsion between the droplets and, thus, prevent coalescence. So-called macroemulsions are in general opaque and have a drop size > 400 nm. In specific cases, two immiscible liquids form transparent systems with submicroscopic droplets, and these are termed microemulsions. Generally speaking a microemulsion is formed when a micellar solution is in contact with hydrocarbon or another oil which is spontaneously solubilised. Then the micelles transform into microemulsion droplets which are thermodynamically stable and their typical size lies in the range of 5-50 nm. Furthermore bicontinuous microemulsions are also known and, sometimes, blue-white emulsions with an intermediate drop size are named miniemulsions. In certain cases they can have a quite uniform drop size distribution and only a small content of surfactant. An interesting application of this emulsion type is the encapsulation of active substances after a polymerisation step [25, 26]. 

Figure 11. Dependence of the volume fractions of oil (open symbols) and alcohol (filled symbols) in a bicontinuous micro-emulsion as a function of the mole fraction of alcohol in the water phase. The different symbols refer to different volume fractions of oil and water domains in the microemulsion = 0.25 (circles), 0.45 (squares), 0.55 (triangles), and 0.75 (diamonds). The system consists of SDS, 1-pentanol, cyclohexane, water, and 0.3M NaCl.

Microemulsions are used as reaction media for a variety of chemical reactions. The aqueous droplets of water-in-oil micro emulsions can be regarded as minireactors for the preparation of nanoparticles of metals and metal salts and particles of the same size as the starting microemulsion droplets can be obtained [1-3]. Polymerisation in micro emulsions is an efficient way to prepare nanolatexes and also to make polymers of very high molecular weight. Both discontinuous and bicontinuous micro emulsions have been used for the purpose [4]. Microemulsions are also of interest as media for enzymatic reactions. Much work has been done with lipase-catalysed reactions and water-in-oil microemulsions have been found suitable for ester synthesis and hydrolysis, as well as for transesterification [5,6]. 

Oh et al. [16] have demonstrated that a microemulsion based on a nonionic surfactant is an efficient reaction system for the synthesis of decyl sulfonate from decyl bromide and sodium sulfite (Scheme 1 of Fig. 2). Whereas at room temperature almost no reaction occurred in a two-phase system without surfactant added, the reaction proceeded smoothly in a micro emulsion. A range of microemulsions was tested with the oil-to-water ratio varying between 9 1 and 1 1 and with approximately constant surfactant concentration. NMR self-diffusion measurements showed that the 9 1 ratio gave a water-in-oil microemulsion and the 1 1 ratio a bicontinuous structure. No substantial difference in reaction rate could be seen between the different types of micro emulsions, indicating that the curvature of the oil-water interface was not decisive for the reaction kinetics. More recent studies on the kinetics of hydrolysis reactions in different types of microemulsions showed a considerable dependence of the reaction rate on the oil-water curvature of the micro emulsion, however [17]. This was interpreted as being due to differences in hydrolysis mechanisms for different types of microemulsions. 

Hydroxyapatite (HA) NP-5-I-NP-9 and cyclohexane To compare differences in the sizes, morphologies and specific surface areas of HA powder prepared by W/0 microemulsion, bicontinuous microemulsion and the emulsion method [162]... 

Polymerization in microemulsion systems has recently gained some attention as a consequence of the numerous studies on microemulsions developed after the 1974 energy crisis (1,2). This new type of polymerization can be considered an extension of the well-known emulsion polymerization process (3). Hicroemulsions are thermodynamically stable and transparent colloidal dispersions, which have the capacity to solubilize large amounts of oil and water. Depending on the different components concentration, microemulsions can adopt various labile structural organizations -globular (w/o or o/w tyne), bicontinuous or even lamellar -Polymerization of monomers has been achieved in these different media (4-18),... 

Microemulsions. The structure of microemulsion systems has been reviewed (22). Both bicontinuous and droplet-type structures, among others, can occur in microemulsions. The droplet-type structure is conceptually more simple and is an extension of the emulsion structure that occurs at relatively high values of IFT. In this case, very small thermodynamically stable droplets occur, typically smaller than 10 nm (7). Each droplet is separated from the continuous phase by a monolayer of surfactant. Bicontinuous microemulsions are those in which oil and water layers in the microemulsion may be only a few molecules thick, separated by a monolayer of surfactant. Each layer may extend over a macroscopic distance, with many layers making up the microemulsion. 

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