1. Common background (about 100 pages) 1.1 Interfaces between pure fluids - Surface tension, Contact angle, wetting
- Interface thickness: intrinsic profile, thermal fluctuations
1.2. Irreversibly adsorbed surface-active species
- Surface pressure, surface rheology (compression and shear, viscoelasticity) - Polymer layers: thickness, rheology, case of proteins
- Other species: asphaltenes, particles
- Mixed layers
1.3. Surfactant layers
- Adsorption-desorption: Gibbs description, validity of the Gibbs equation, Langmuir equation of state, energy barriers, depletion.
- Non-equilibrium systems: sorption and transfer kinetics, "dynamic" tension
- Surface rheology: extension of Gibbs description, resistance to compression and shear, viscoelasticity, Levich model, influence of the surface charge
1.4 Thin films: Interaction between surfaces (van der Waals, electrostatic, short range), disjoining pressure. Oscillatory forces, film stratification
1.5 Surfactants and self-associated systems: micelles, lyotropic liquid crystals,
- Surfactant parameter, link with HLB, HLD and PIT
- Critical micellar concentration, link with surfactant solubility, exchanges with bulk
- Micelle size distribution, micelles in organic solvents
- Lyotropic liquid crystalline phases, phase diagrams, dispersed phases (cubosomes, hexosomes)
2. Microemulsions (about 40 pages) 2.1 Thermodynamic stability
- Structure, role of the spontaneous curvature and of the curvature elasticity of the surfactant layer
- Percolation - Exchanges, shape fluctuations
2.2 Phase diagrams - Emulsification failure and other solubility limits
- "Fish" diagrams, critical points
2.3 Bicontinous microemulsions - persistence length of the surface layer
- transition to lamellar phases or to molecularly dispersed phases
2.4 Ultralow interfacial tensions: origin, wetting phenomena
3. Emulsions and foams (about 130 pages) 3.1 Emulsion and foam structures, analogies between high internal phase emulsions (HIPE) and foams, monodisperse dispersions
3.2 Foaming and emulsification: methods, control of drop/bubble size
3.3 Foam and emulsion rheology
- Wall slip
- Soft solid behavior, rejuvenation
- Link with structural reorganisation processes, the jamming transition
- Role of interfacial rheology
3.4 Foam and emulsion stability
- Sedimentation/creaming of emulsions: influence of surface rheology, influence of surfactant concentration and of drop volume fraction. Foam drainage, case of HIPEs
-&nb
About the Author:
Dominique Langevin is CNRS research director. She first worked at the Physics Laboratory of Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. She was afterwards director of the Paul Pascal Research Center, CNRS laboratory in Bordeaux. She currently works at the Laboratoire de Physique des Solides in Orsay, France.
Her main research topic is the study of liquid interfaces in the presence of surfactants, polymers and/or nanoparticles, with a special focus on interfacial rheology. She is presently involved in the study of the physical chemistry of foams and emulsions. She published about 400 articles in scientific journals. She is also active in teaching in various area of Physics: Optics, Thermodynamics and topics closer to her research, Formulation, Surfactants and Foams. She received among other awards a grand prix of the French Academy of Sciences, the silver medal of CNRS, the L'Oréal Unesco award for women in Science and the Overbeek gold medal. She is member of the Academia Europea.
