Lan, Y;
Caciagli, A;
Guidetti, G;
Yu, Z;
Liu, J;
Johansen, VE;
Kamp, M;
... Eiser, E; + view all
(2018)
Unexpected stability of aqueous dispersions of raspberry-like colloids.
Nature Communications
, 9
, Article 3614. 10.1038/s41467-018-05560-3.
Preview |
Text
Caciagli_s41467-018-05560-3.pdf - Published Version Download (3MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Aqueous colloidal suspensions, both man-made and natural, are part of our everyday life. The applicability of colloidal suspensions, however, is limited by the range of conditions over which they are stable. Here we report a novel type of highly monodisperse raspberry-like colloids, which are prepared in a single-step synthesis that relies on simultaneous dispersion and emulsion polymerisation. The resulting raspberry colloids behave almost like hard spheres. In aqueous solutions, such prepared raspberries show unexpected stability against aggregation over large variations of added salt concentrations without addition of stabilisers. We present simple Derjaguin–Landau–Verwey–Overbeek (DLVO) calculations performed on raspberry-like and smooth colloids showing that this stability results from our raspberries’ unique morphology, which extends our understanding of colloidal stability against salting. Further, the raspberries’ stability facilitates the formation of superspheres and thin films in which the raspberry colloids self-assemble into hexagonally close-packed photonic crystals with exquisite reproducibility.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Unexpected stability of aqueous dispersions of raspberry-like colloids |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41467-018-05560-3 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05560-3 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Chemical Engineering |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10076648 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
