Pickering Emulsion and Derived Materials

Particle-stabilized emulsions, today often referred to as Pickering/Ramsden emulsions, are vital in many fields, including personal care products, foods, pharmaceuticals, and oil recovery. The exploitation of these Pickering emulsions for the manufacture of new functional materials has also recently become the subject of intense investigation. While much progress has been made over the past decade, Pickering emulsion still remains a rich topic since many aspects of their behavior have yet to be investigated. The present “Pickering Emulsion and Derived Materials” Special Issue aims to bring together research and review papers pertaining to the recent developments in the design, fabrication, and application of Pickering emulsions. The themes include, but are not limited to: 1. Interactions of colloidal particles confined at fluid interfaces 2. Pickering emulsion-based polymerization 3. Interfacial assembly and emulsion stabilization 4. Rheology of particle laden interfaces and Pickering emulsions 5. Functional materials templated from Pickering emulsion

Composite Liquid Marbles as a Macroscopic Model System Representing Shedding of Enveloped Viruses

Copyright © 2020 American Chemical Society. A model macroscopic system imitating the entry of viruses into living cells is suggested. The system represents the contact of a composite (core-shell) liquid marble with hydrophobic/hydrophilic particles. Composite liquid marbles are water droplets coated with silicone oil armored with nanometer-sized hydrophobic particles serving as an interfacial model of a living cell. Composite marbles absorbed hydrophilic polymer particles but prevented hydrophobic particles from entering their core. Swallowing of hydrophilic particles by composite marbles resembles the penetration of viruses into living cells. The interfacial mechanism of absorption is suggested

pH-Responsive Aqueous Bubbles Stabilized With Polymer Particles Carrying Poly(4-vinylpyridine) Colloidal Stabilizer

Free radical dispersion polymerization was conducted to synthesize near-monodispersed, micrometer-sized polystyrene (PS) particles carrying pH-responsive poly(4-vinylpyridine) (P4VP) colloidal stabilizer (P4VP-PS particles). The P4VP-PS particles were extensively characterized in terms of morphology, size, size distribution, chemical composition, surface chemistry, and pH-response using optical and scanning electron microscopies, elemental microanalysis, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, laser diffraction particle size analysis, and zeta potential measurement. The P4VP-PS particles can work as a pH-responsive stabilizer of aqueous bubbles by adsorption at the air-water interface. At and above pH 4.0, where the particles have partially protonated/non-protonated P4VP stabilizer with relatively hydrophobic character, particle-stabilized bubbles were formed. Optical and scanning electron microscopy studies confirmed that the P4VP-PS particles were adsorbed at the air-water interface of the bubbles in aqueous media. At and below pH 3.0, where the particles have cationic P4VP stabilizer with water-soluble character, no bubble was formed. Rapid disruption of the bubbles can be induced by decreasing the pH; the addition of acid caused the in situ protonation of pyridine groups in P4VP, which impart water-soluble character to the P4VP stabilizer, and the P4VP-PS particles were desorbed from the air-water interface. The bubble stabilization/destabilization cycles could be repeated at least five times

Halide-enhanced catalytic activity of palladium nanoparticles comes at the expense of catalyst recovery

In this communication, we present studies of the oxidative homocoupling of arylboronic acids catalyzed by immobilised palladium nanoparticles in aqueous solution. This reaction is of significant interest because it shares a key transmetallation step with the well-known Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reaction. Additives can have significant effects on catalysis, both in terms of reaction mechanism and recovery of catalytic species, and our aim was to study the effect of added halides on catalytic efficiency and catalyst recovery. Using kinetic studies, we have shown that added halides (added as NaCl and NaBr) can increase the catalytic activity of the palladium nanoparticles more than 10-fold, allowing reactions to be completed in less than half a day at 30 °C. However, this increased activity comes at the expense of catalyst recovery. The results are in agreement with a reaction mechanism in which, under conditions involving high concentrations of chloride or bromide, palladium leaching plays an important role. Considering the evidence for analogous reactions occurring on the surface of palladium nanoparticles under different reaction conditions, we conclude that additives can exert a significant effect on the mechanism of reactions catalyzed by nanoparticles, including switching from a surface reaction to a solution reaction. The possibility of this switch in mechanism may also be the cause for the disagreement on this topic in the literature

Interactions between interfaces dictate stimuli-responsive emulsion behaviour

Stimuli-responsive emulsions offer a dual advantage, combining long-term storage with controlled release triggered by external cues such as pH or temperature changes. This study establishes that thermo-responsive emulsion behaviour is primarily determined by interactions between, rather than within, interfaces. Consequently, the stability of these emulsions is intricately tied to the nature of the stabilizing microgel particles - whether they are more polymeric or colloidal, and the morphology they assume at the liquid interface. The colloidal properties of the microgels provide the foundation for the long-term stability of Pickering emulsions. However, limited deformability can lead to non-responsive emulsions. Conversely, the polymeric properties of the microgels enable them to spread and flatten at the liquid interface, enabling stimuli-responsive behaviour. Furthermore, microgels shared between two emulsion droplets in flocculated emulsions facilitate stimuli-responsiveness, regardless of their internal architecture. This underscores the pivotal role of microgel morphology and the forces they exert on liquid interfaces in the control and design of stimuli-responsive emulsions and interfaces.ISSN:2041-172

The whole blood transcriptional regulation landscape in 465 COVID-19 infected samples from Japan COVID-19 Task Force

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19患者由来の血液細胞における遺伝子発現の網羅的解析 --重症度に応じた遺伝子発現の変化には、ヒトゲノム配列の個人差が影響する--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-23.Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recently-emerged infectious disease that has caused millions of deaths, where comprehensive understanding of disease mechanisms is still unestablished. In particular, studies of gene expression dynamics and regulation landscape in COVID-19 infected individuals are limited. Here, we report on a thorough analysis of whole blood RNA-seq data from 465 genotyped samples from the Japan COVID-19 Task Force, including 359 severe and 106 non-severe COVID-19 cases. We discover 1169 putative causal expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) including 34 possible colocalizations with biobank fine-mapping results of hematopoietic traits in a Japanese population, 1549 putative causal splice QTLs (sQTLs; e.g. two independent sQTLs at TOR1AIP1), as well as biologically interpretable trans-eQTL examples (e.g., REST and STING1), all fine-mapped at single variant resolution. We perform differential gene expression analysis to elucidate 198 genes with increased expression in severe COVID-19 cases and enriched for innate immune-related functions. Finally, we evaluate the limited but non-zero effect of COVID-19 phenotype on eQTL discovery, and highlight the presence of COVID-19 severity-interaction eQTLs (ieQTLs; e.g., CLEC4C and MYBL2). Our study provides a comprehensive catalog of whole blood regulatory variants in Japanese, as well as a reference for transcriptional landscapes in response to COVID-19 infection