Controlling molecular transport in minimal emulsions

Philipp Gruner, Birte Riechers, Benoît Semin, Jiseok Lim, Abigail Johnston, Kathleen Short and Jean-Christophe Baret ()
Additional contact information
Philipp Gruner: Max-Planck-Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Droplets, Membranes and Interfaces
Birte Riechers: Max-Planck-Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Droplets, Membranes and Interfaces
Benoît Semin: Max-Planck-Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Droplets, Membranes and Interfaces
Jiseok Lim: Max-Planck-Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Droplets, Membranes and Interfaces
Abigail Johnston: Max-Planck-Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Droplets, Membranes and Interfaces
Kathleen Short: Max-Planck-Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Droplets, Membranes and Interfaces
Jean-Christophe Baret: Max-Planck-Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Droplets, Membranes and Interfaces

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Emulsions are metastable dispersions in which molecular transport is a major mechanism driving the system towards its state of minimal energy. Determining the underlying mechanisms of molecular transport between droplets is challenging due to the complexity of a typical emulsion system. Here we introduce the concept of ‘minimal emulsions’, which are controlled emulsions produced using microfluidic tools, simplifying an emulsion down to its minimal set of relevant parameters. We use these minimal emulsions to unravel the fundamentals of transport of small organic molecules in water-in-fluorinated-oil emulsions, a system of great interest for biotechnological applications. Our results are of practical relevance to guarantee a sustainable compartmentalization of compounds in droplet microreactors and to design new strategies for the dynamic control of droplet compositions.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10392 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms10392

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10392

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().