Thermoresponsive nanoemulsion-based gel synthesized through a low-energy process
Name
s41467-019-10749-1.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.16 MB
Format
Unknown
Checksum (MD5)
b943c9dd966277472575329995ed52ef
Author(s)
Hashemnejad, Seyed Meysam
Badruddoza, Abu Zayed Md
Zarket, Brady
Ricardo Castaneda, Carlos
Doyle, Patrick S
Date Issued
2019
Journal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Version
Final published version
Abstract
© 2019, The Author(s). Thermoresponsive nanoemulsions find utility in applications ranging from food to pharmaceuticals to consumer products. Prior systems have found limited translation to applications due to cytotoxicity of the compositions and/or difficulties in scaling-up the process. Here, we report a route to thermally gel an oil-in-water nanoemulsion using a small amount of FDA-approved amphiphilic triblock Pluronic copolymers which act as gelling agents. At ambient temperature the suspension displays liquid-like behavior, and quickly becomes an elastic gel at elevated temperatures. We propose a gelation mechanism triggered by synergistic action of thermally-induced adsorption of Pluronic copolymers onto the droplet interface and an increased micelle concentration in the aqueous solution. We demonstrate that the system’s properties can be tuned via many factors and report their rheological properties. The nanoemulsions are prepared using a low-energy process which offers an efficient route to scale-up. The nanoemulsion formulations are well-suited for use in cosmetics and pharmaceutical applications.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10749-1
