Bicontinuous interfacially jammed emulsion gels, or bijels, are a new class of soft materials. These are kinetically trapped, non-equilibrium configurations of immiscible fluid channels stabilized by an interfacial particle monolayer that jams the spinodal interface, with the characteristic size of the fluid domains tuned solely through the solids volume fraction. These qualities make bijels excellent soft matter templates for novel materials synthesis. In this talk, we outline several strategies for the synthesis of macroporous, hierarchically porous, and composite materials using bijels as templates, and describe their vast potential for application in several fields including tissue engineering, catalysis, separations, and energy systems. Given the self-assembled nature of bijels, it follows that the physicochemical properties of the solid and fluid species are crucial for both bijel formation and the versatile materials processing routes that employ them. These consequential effects along with several novel examples of materials from bijel templates will be discussed.

Using bijels for novel materials synthesis

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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