Centrifugal Compression of the Bijel

Bicontinuous interfacially jammed emulsion gels or bijels are a class of soft material where two partially miscible liquids are quenched into the demixed region and phase separate via spinodal decomposition. This results in a short-lived bicontinuous structure with two continuous interpenetrating phases; the interface can then be stabilised by solid particles which jam causing a long-lived stable structure to be formed. I will talk about experiments investigating the mechanical response of bijels using centrifugal compression. These experiments were combined with imaging on the confocal microscope in order to observe changes to the internal structure. Macroscopically the bijel yields and changes in height of the bijel are recorded and related to the overall stability of the structure. However, internally the structure of the bijel remains intact at the top of the sample and becomes compressed with increasing depth.