Molecular Brush Surfactants: Versatile Emulsifiers for Stabilizing and Structuring Liquids

Using amphiphilic molecular brushes to stabilize emulsions usually requires the synthesis of specific side chains, which can be a time-consuming and difficult challenge meet. By taking advantage electrostatic interactions between water-soluble oil-soluble oligomeric ligands, in situ formation, assembly jamming brush surfactants (MBSs) at oil-water interface is described. With MBSs, stable including o/w, w/o o/w/o easily prepared by varying molar ratios ligands. Moreover, when jammed, binding energy MBSs sufficiently strong allow stabilization liquids nonequilibrium shapes, i.e., structuring liquids, producing an elastic film with exceptional mechanical properties. These structured have numerous potential applications, chemical biphasic reactions, liquid electronics, all-liquid biomimetic system.