Putting interfaces at work

所有材料、废水和气体排放的充分回收是不可逆转的趋势。需要新的加工技术才能取得成功。现有的加工技术已经达到了极限，或者根本不存在所需的工艺。新的高性能材料将是这一转变的核心，允许产生额外的轻型结构，使用的材料比目前用于提供类似甚至更高性能的材料要少得多。 拟议的计划旨在利用界面(液-液和气-液)结合它们与具有特定表面属性的颗粒的亲和力来开发高选择性回收技术或建造具有极高孔隙率的高性能材料，从而将所需资源的数量降至最低。 申请人是固体稳定乳液(又名SSE或Pickering乳液)和泡沫加工方面的专家。当细颗粒(微米到纳米尺寸)附着在界面上时，就会产生SSE。颗粒的表面化学与水和油的化学结合在一起，对于最终结果是SSE至关重要。当传统地制备SSE时，可以选择每个组分(水、油和颗粒)的所有化学条件，以便产生乳状液。到目前为止，SSE已经被生产出来，用于化妆品、制药、化工和炼油行业。可以制备两种主要类型的乳液，即低浓度和高浓度，其中两者之间的边界位于相同球体的最大堆积分数，约占分散相的65%。在该值以下，我们将乳剂命名为SSE，而在上面，我们将HIPE-SSE用于高内部相乳剂SSE。同样的道理可以说，泡沫是气体，一种液体，而不是两种液体。 引发这一计划的两个主要想法是，首先，低分散含量的SSE可以用来收集分离过程中感兴趣的颗粒，其次，HIPE SSE可以提供模板来构建高度多孔的材料。在这两种情况下，方法都是调查潜在应用程序所需的处理，并最终确定这类应用程序的真正大规模潜力。 当含油量保持在40%以下时，SSE可以通过控制油相和水相的化学成分，使它们对目标颗粒具有吸引力，从而有选择地分离研磨/粉碎材料(原材料、回收塑料或生物材料、玻璃)。在高含油量(HIPE-SSE)时，液滴与相邻液滴接触，液滴之间的界面提供了连续的颗粒结构。在除去油相和水相后，这些乳状液的后续处理可能会将颗粒结构转变为固体材料，所得到的固体具有高度多孔性。

Full recycling of all the materials, waste waters, and gaseous emissions is an irreversible trend. New processing technologies are required to succeed. The existing processing techniques have reached their limit or simply the processes required do not exist yet. New, high-performance materials will be at the core of the transformation, allowing for extra light structures to be produced, making use of much less materials than what is currently used to provide similar and even superior properties. The proposed program aims at using interfaces (Liquid-Liquid and Gas-liquid) in combination with their affinity with particles having specific surface properties to develop high-selectivity recycling technologies or build high-performance materials with extreme porosity that will minimize the quantify of resources required. The applicant is an expert in the processing of solid-stabilized emulsions (AKA SSEs or Pickering emulsions) and foams. SSE are produced when fine particles (micron- to nano-sized) attach at an interface. The surface chemistry of the particles, combined to the water and the oil chemistry, is crucial for the final result to be a SSE. When conventionally preparing SSEs, it is possible to select all the chemical conditions of each constituent (water, oil and particles) so that an emulsion is produced. So far, SSEs have been produced to be used as is in the cosmetic, pharmaceutical, chemical, and oil refining industries. Two main types of emulsions can be prepared i.e. low and high concentrations where the frontier between the two sits at the maximum packing fraction of identical spheres, around 65% of dispersed phase. Below this value, we name the emulsions SSEs while above, we use HIPE-SSEs for High Internal Phase Emulsions SSEs. The same can be said of foams were gas a liquid are used instead of two liquids. The two main ideas that triggered this program is first that low dispersed content SSEs could be used to harvest particles of interest in separation processes and second that HIPE SSEs could provide templates to build highly porous materials. In both cases, the approach is to investigate the processing required for the potential applications and eventually determine the real potential for such applications at large scale. When the oil content is kept below 40% in volume, SSEs offer the potential to selectively separate ground/crushed materials (raw ore, recycled plastics or biomaterials, glass, ) by controlling the chemistry of the oil and the water phases to make them attractive to the particles targeted. At high oil volume content (HIPE-SSE), the drops are in contact with their neighbours and the interface between the drops offers a continuous structure of particles. Subsequent processing of these emulsions may transform the particles structure into a solid material, after removal of the oil and the water phases with the resulting solid being highly porous.