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Immobilization of Colloidal Monolayers at Fluid–Fluid Interfaces

Monolayers of colloidal particles trapped at an interface between two immiscible fluids play a pivotal role in many applications and act as essential models in fundamental studies. One of the main advantages of these systems is that non-close packed monolayers with tunable inter-particle spacing can...

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Autores principales: Bähler, Peter T., Zanini, Michele, Morgese, Giulia, Benetti, Edmondo M., Isa, Lucio
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6318634/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30674151
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/gels2030019
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author Bähler, Peter T.
Zanini, Michele
Morgese, Giulia
Benetti, Edmondo M.
Isa, Lucio
author_facet Bähler, Peter T.
Zanini, Michele
Morgese, Giulia
Benetti, Edmondo M.
Isa, Lucio
author_sort Bähler, Peter T.
collection PubMed
description Monolayers of colloidal particles trapped at an interface between two immiscible fluids play a pivotal role in many applications and act as essential models in fundamental studies. One of the main advantages of these systems is that non-close packed monolayers with tunable inter-particle spacing can be formed, as required, for instance, in surface patterning and sensing applications. At the same time, the immobilization of particles locked into desired structures to be transferred to solid substrates remains challenging. Here, we describe three different strategies to immobilize monolayers of polystyrene microparticles at water–decane interfaces. The first route is based on the leaking of polystyrene oligomers from the particles themselves, which leads to the formation of a rigid interfacial film. The other two rely on in situ interfacial polymerization routes that embed the particles into a polymer membrane. By tracking the motion of the colloids at the interface, we can follow in real-time the formation of the polymer membranes and we interestingly find that the onset of the polymerization reaction is accompanied by an increase in particle mobility determined by Marangoni flows at the interface. These results pave the way for future developments in the realization of thin tailored composite polymer-particle membranes.
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spelling pubmed-63186342019-01-17 Immobilization of Colloidal Monolayers at Fluid–Fluid Interfaces Bähler, Peter T. Zanini, Michele Morgese, Giulia Benetti, Edmondo M. Isa, Lucio Gels Article Monolayers of colloidal particles trapped at an interface between two immiscible fluids play a pivotal role in many applications and act as essential models in fundamental studies. One of the main advantages of these systems is that non-close packed monolayers with tunable inter-particle spacing can be formed, as required, for instance, in surface patterning and sensing applications. At the same time, the immobilization of particles locked into desired structures to be transferred to solid substrates remains challenging. Here, we describe three different strategies to immobilize monolayers of polystyrene microparticles at water–decane interfaces. The first route is based on the leaking of polystyrene oligomers from the particles themselves, which leads to the formation of a rigid interfacial film. The other two rely on in situ interfacial polymerization routes that embed the particles into a polymer membrane. By tracking the motion of the colloids at the interface, we can follow in real-time the formation of the polymer membranes and we interestingly find that the onset of the polymerization reaction is accompanied by an increase in particle mobility determined by Marangoni flows at the interface. These results pave the way for future developments in the realization of thin tailored composite polymer-particle membranes. MDPI 2016-07-08 /pmc/articles/PMC6318634/ /pubmed/30674151 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/gels2030019 Text en © 2016 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Bähler, Peter T.
Zanini, Michele
Morgese, Giulia
Benetti, Edmondo M.
Isa, Lucio
Immobilization of Colloidal Monolayers at Fluid–Fluid Interfaces
title Immobilization of Colloidal Monolayers at Fluid–Fluid Interfaces
title_full Immobilization of Colloidal Monolayers at Fluid–Fluid Interfaces
title_fullStr Immobilization of Colloidal Monolayers at Fluid–Fluid Interfaces
title_full_unstemmed Immobilization of Colloidal Monolayers at Fluid–Fluid Interfaces
title_short Immobilization of Colloidal Monolayers at Fluid–Fluid Interfaces
title_sort immobilization of colloidal monolayers at fluid–fluid interfaces
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6318634/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30674151
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/gels2030019
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