Year: 2013
Journal: Soft Matter, 2013,9, 6505-6514, 20131119
Authors: Roberto Milani * 1 2, Evanthia Monogioudi 1, Michele Baldrighi 3, Gabriella Cavallo 2 3, Valentina Arima 4, Lucia Marra 4, Alessandra Zizzari 5, Ross Rinaldi 4 5, Markus Linder 1 6*, Giuseppe Resnati 2 3* and Pierangelo Metrangolo 1 2 3*
Organizations: 1 VTT – Technical Research Centre of Finland, Tietotie 2, Espoo, Finland, 2 Center for Nano Science and Technology@PoliMi, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, via Giovanni Pascoli 70/3, I-20133 Milano, Italy, 3 NFMLab-DCMIC “Giulio Natta”, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7, I-20131 Milano, Italy, 4 National Nanotechnology Laboratory (NNL), CNR – Institute of Nanoscience (NANO), U.O.S. Lecce, via per Arnesano, I-73100, Italy, 5 Università del Salento, Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica “E. De Giorgi”, ex Collegio Fiorini Campus extraurbano, via per Arnesano, 73100, Lecce, Italy, 6 Aalto University, School of Chemical Technology, Kemistintie 1, P.O. Box 16100, Espoo, Finland
The stabilization of fluorous oil droplets in aqueous environment is a critical issue in the preparation of emulsified systems for biomedical applications and in emulsion polymerization technology, due to the extreme immiscibility of aqueous and fluorous phases. We present here a detailed study on the behavior of the hydrophobin HFBI, i.e. a small natural protein endowed with exceptional surface activity, at the interface between aqueous and fluorous phases. HFBI behaves as an efficient and sustainable surfactant at remarkably low concentrations and forms a strong and elastic film at the interface between the two phases. We also show proof-of-concept experiments on the use of HFBI as a surfactant in fluorous oil/water emulsified systems and in microfluidic circuits.
