title: Stimuli-responsive composite particles as solid-stabilizers for effective oil harvesting.
abstract: The polymer-grafted magnetic composite particles have been synthesized and developed to harvest oil by use of their speical wettability. Different from gravity-driven oil-water separation, the prepared polymer brushes-grafted magnetic composite particles can act as solid-stabilizers that diffuse to the oil-water interfical region and effectively minimize the direct oil-water interfical area by volume exclusion, whereas the magnetic Fe3O4 core allows easy separation of Pickering emulsions from oil-water mixture under an external magnetic field. When the emulsions were heated from room temperature to 50 °C, the coil-to-globule transition of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) acts as the driving force for the destabilization of the emulsion, thereby achieving the release of oil. The novel materials can be used in aspects of oil-water separation, inducing oil droplet transport and release of lipophilic substrates.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Lanzhou 730000, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Yongkang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.forename: Shoubing
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Junping
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ju
authors.forename: Yuqi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Tingmei
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Qihua
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wang