Curvature energy frustration

An interesting feature is however that there is a natural or spontaneous curvature that indicates the piefen ed. state of the inteifacial layer, which is nut necessarily the actual. state. The preferred Curv ature could be the one related to the R concept, i.e., physicochemical formulation effects, while the actual one would result from the emulsification process. The difference between the two is some kind of bending energy frustration, which by the way could be related to the concept of stability of the interfacial structure, and of the resulting emulsion. 

The competition between the polar and steric dipoles of molecules may also lead to internal frustration. In this case, the local energetically ideal configuration cannot be extended to the whole space, but tends to be accomodated by the appearance of a periodic array of defects. For example, the presence of the strong steric dipole at the head of a molecule forming bilayers will induce local curvature. As the size of the curved areas increases, an increase in the corresponding elastic energy makes energetically preferable the... 

Consider now an O/W/O film with Ho 0, or a W/O/W film with //o mean curvature of the monolayer at the edge of the hole H and the spontaneous curvature Ho have opposite signs. Thus, there is always a monolayer frustration energy involved in the hole formation. The fiiistration can be reduced by increasing the film thickness in this case, // — 0 and the difference between H and Ho decreases. The decrease in the Hookean H - Hof term is, however, traded for an increase in the total surface area of the edge. As a result, at any given hole radius, the free... 

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