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
