title: Detachment energies of spheroidal particles from fluid-fluid interfaces.
abstract: The energy required to detach a single particle from a fluid-fluid interface is an important parameter for designing certain soft materials, for example, emulsions stabilised by colloidal particles, colloidosomes designed for targeted drug delivery, and bio-sensors composed of magnetic particles adsorbed at interfaces. For a fixed particle volume, prolate and oblate spheroids attach more strongly to interfaces because they have larger particle-interface areas. Calculating the detachment energy of spheroids necessitates the difficult measurement of particle-liquid surface tensions, in contrast with spheres, where the contact angle suffices. We develop a simplified detachment energy model for spheroids which depends only on the particle aspect ratio and the height of the particle centre of mass above the fluid-fluid interface. We use lattice Boltzmann simulations to validate the model and provide quantitative evidence that the approach can be applied to simulate particle-stabilized emulsions, and highlight the experimental implications of this validation.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Computational Science, University College London, 20 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AJ, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Gary B
authors.initials: GB
authors.lastname: Davies
authors.affiliation: Institute for Materials and Processes, Department of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, Edinburgh EH9 3JL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Timm
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Krüger
authors.affiliation: Centre for Computational Science, University College London, 20 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AJ, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Peter V
authors.initials: PV
authors.lastname: Coveney
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Harting