Clays mini emulsion

An increased interest in this approach was created when clay encapsulation was attempted. Furthermore, the miniemulsion polymerization technique proved to be another versatile route towards encapsulated materials (see [33]). In the past decade, about 100 papers per year are published (excluding the many papers on clay nanocomposites produced by techniques other than (mini)emulsion polymerization). 

The possible morphologies that can be created during the sonication process are depicted in Figure 10.1. There are two thermodynamically stable cases regarding the clay location, namely the preferential location at the droplet surface (Figure lO.le) and full encapsulation (Figure 10.1a). The first case is desirable when solid particles instead of surfactant molecules are used to stabilize a (mini)emulsion and one speaks of a Pickering (mini)emul-sion. The latter case of encapsulation of clay platelets into the latex particles is preferred when surfactant molecules are used to stabilize the (mini)emulsion. 

First we will discuss the preferential surface location of the clay platelets, i.e. the Pickering (mini)emulsion case (Figure lO.le). 

Pickering (mini)emulsion Clay-armoured latex particles... 

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