TY - JOUR
T1 - Tracking the heat-triggered phase change of polydopamine-shelled, perfluorocarbon emulsion droplets into microbubbles using neutron scattering
AU - Vidallon, Mark Louis P.
AU - Giles, Luke W.
AU - Pottage, Matthew J.
AU - Butler, Calum S.G.
AU - Crawford, Simon A.
AU - Bishop, Alexis I.
AU - Tabor, Rico F.
AU - de Campo, Liliana
AU - Teo, Boon Mian
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the support of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), in providing the Bilby SANS and Kookaburra USANS instruments and facilities used in this work (P8365). The authors also acknowledge the use of equipment at Monash Centre for Electron Microscopy (MCEM), Ramaciotti Centre for Cryo-Electron Microscopy, and Monash Analytical Platform. The authors acknowledge the technical support from Mr. Scott Blundell during the COVID19 pandemic. The authors would like to thank AINSE Limited for providing financial assistance though AINSE PGRA to enable work on ANSTO beamline facilities. Monash University, Faculty of Science Dean's Postgraduate Research Scholarship (M.L.P.V.) and the Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship (L.W.G. M.J.P. and C.S.G.B.) support this research. This work also benefited from the use of the SasView application, originally developed under NSF award DMR-0520547. SasView contains code developed with funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the SINE2020 project, grant agreement no. 654000.
Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the support of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation ( ANSTO ), in providing the Bilby SANS and Kookaburra USANS instruments and facilities used in this work (P8365). The authors also acknowledge the use of equipment at Monash Centre for Electron Microscopy (MCEM), Ramaciotti Centre for Cryo-Electron Microscopy, and Monash Analytical Platform. The authors acknowledge the technical support from Mr. Scott Blundell during the COVID19 pandemic. The authors would like to thank AINSE Limited for providing financial assistance though AINSE PGRA to enable work on ANSTO beamline facilities. Monash University, Faculty of Science Dean’s Postgraduate Research Scholarship (M.L.P.V.) and the Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship (L.W.G., M.J.P., and C.S.G.B.) support this research. This work also benefited from the use of the SasView application, originally developed under NSF award DMR-0520547. SasView contains code developed with funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the SINE2020 project, grant agreement no. 654000.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Inc.
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2022/2
Y1 - 2022/2
N2 - Perfluorocarbon emulsion droplets are hybrid colloidal materials with vast applications, ranging from imaging to drug delivery, due to their controllable phase transition into microbubbles via heat application or acoustic droplet vapourisation. The current work highlights the application of small- and ultra-small-angle neutron scattering (SANS and USANS), in combination with contrast variation techniques, in observing the in situ phase transition of polydopamine-shelled, perfluorocarbon (PDA/PFC) emulsion droplets with controlled polydispersity into microbubbles upon heating. We correlate these measurements with optical and transmission electron microscopy imaging, dynamic light scattering, and thermogravimetric analysis to characterise these emulsions, and observe their phase transition into microbubbles. Results show that the phase transition of PDA/PFC droplets with perfluorohexane (PFH), perfluoropentane (PFP), and PFH–PFP mixtures occur at temperatures that are around 30–40 °C higher than the boiling points of pure liquid PFCs, and this is influenced by the specific PFC compositions (perfluorohexane, perfluoropentane, and mixtures of these PFCs). Analysis and model fitting of neutron scattering data allowed us to monitor droplet size distributions at different temperatures, giving valuable insights into the transformation of these polydisperse, emulsion droplet systems.
AB - Perfluorocarbon emulsion droplets are hybrid colloidal materials with vast applications, ranging from imaging to drug delivery, due to their controllable phase transition into microbubbles via heat application or acoustic droplet vapourisation. The current work highlights the application of small- and ultra-small-angle neutron scattering (SANS and USANS), in combination with contrast variation techniques, in observing the in situ phase transition of polydopamine-shelled, perfluorocarbon (PDA/PFC) emulsion droplets with controlled polydispersity into microbubbles upon heating. We correlate these measurements with optical and transmission electron microscopy imaging, dynamic light scattering, and thermogravimetric analysis to characterise these emulsions, and observe their phase transition into microbubbles. Results show that the phase transition of PDA/PFC droplets with perfluorohexane (PFH), perfluoropentane (PFP), and PFH–PFP mixtures occur at temperatures that are around 30–40 °C higher than the boiling points of pure liquid PFCs, and this is influenced by the specific PFC compositions (perfluorohexane, perfluoropentane, and mixtures of these PFCs). Analysis and model fitting of neutron scattering data allowed us to monitor droplet size distributions at different temperatures, giving valuable insights into the transformation of these polydisperse, emulsion droplet systems.
KW - Microbubbles
KW - Perfluorocarbon droplets
KW - Phase-change droplets
KW - Polydopamine
KW - Small-angle neutron scattering
KW - Ultra-small-angle neutron scattering
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85114954296&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.08.162
DO - 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.08.162
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85114954296
SN - 0021-9797
VL - 607
SP - 836
EP - 847
JO - Journal of Colloid and Interface Science
JF - Journal of Colloid and Interface Science
IS - Part 1
ER -