Pickering Emulsions Stabilized by Soft Microgels: Influence of the Emulsification Process on Particle Interfacial Organization and Emulsion Properties

This work reports a new evidence of the versatility of soft responsive microgels as stabilizers for Pickering emulsions. The organization of microgels at the oil–water interface is a function of the preparation pathway. The present results show that emulsification energy can be used as a trigger to modify microgel deformation at the oil–water interface and their packing density: high shear rates bring strong flattening of the microgels, whereas low shear rates lead to dense monolayers, where the microgels are laterally compressed. As a consequence, the resulting emulsions have opposite behavior in terms of flocculation, which arises from bridging between neighboring drops and is strongly dependent on their surface coverage. This strategy can be applied to any microgel which can sufficiently adsorb at low shear rates, i.e. small microgels or lightly cross-linked ones. The control of the organization of microgels at the interface does not only modify emulsion end-use properties but also constitutes a new tool for the development of Janus-type microgels, obtained by chemical modification of the adsorbed microgels.