Structured liquids with interfacial robust assemblies of a nonionic crystalline surfactant

摘要

Hypothesis: The structuring of liquids, that is, the kinetic trapping of nonequilibrium shapes of liquid-liquid interfaces, shows great promise for various applications, especially all-liquid devices. The strategies reported thus far to stabilize such unstable states include interfacial jamming of large colloidal particles and interfacial coassembly of elaborate molecules and/or nanoparticles. However, the structuring of liquids using a simple molecular surfactant has not been sufficiently demonstrated. We hypothesized that a surfactant with strong intermolecular interactions would form interfacial assemblies that behave substantially as solid particles for the structuring of liquids.