The role of adsorbed particles on interfaces between immiscible fluids is important in many applications such as the stabilisation of droplets in Pickering emulsions in foods, cosmetics and oil recovery. They are also fundamentally interesting, particularly in materials science, in studies on the formation of functional membranes from monolayers of nano- or micro-particles. The geometry of the fluid interface must be considered as it is not always planar.
This hot paper by Dinsmore and colleagues analyses the adsorption of one or more spherical particles on a fluid interface that is initially curved in an anisotropic shape. The authors study the effect of interfacial curvature on the binding energy and on the associated capillary force exerted on the particles. The paper reports that the binding energy of one particle on a curved interface depends on the interface shape for the particle and not the local shape. Conversely, the binding energy for two particles depends only on the local shape.
Capillary interactions among spherical particles at curved liquid interfaces
Soft Matter, 2012, 8, 8582. DOI: 10.1039/c2sm25871d (free to read for a short time)
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