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Dense stabilized emulsions are mixtures of immiscible fluids where the high-volume fraction droplet dispersed phase is stabilized against coalescence by steric interactions. The production of emulsions involves high-shear flows and it is…
Phase separation in passive systems leads to uncontrolled droplet growth, limiting structural control in soft materials and cells. We identify a generic mechanism to arrest coarsening based on chemical interconversion between molecular…
These lecture notes describe a basic theory of chemically active droplets, which are droplets kept away from equilibrium by driven chemical reactions. The notes assume a basic familiarity with equilibrium thermodynamics of phase separation,…
We study a chemically active binary mixture undergoing phase separation and show that under non-equilibrium conditions, stable liquid spherical shells can form via a spinodal instability in the droplet center. A single liquid shell tends to…
We numerically investigate the rheological response of a non-coalescing multiple emulsion under a symmetric shear flow. We find that the dynamics significantly depends on the magnitude of the shear rate and on the number of the encapsulated…
We use a continuum model to examine the effect of activity on a phase separating mixture of an extensile active nematic and a passive fluid. We highlight the distinct role of previously considered interfacial active stresses and bulk active…
Phase separating systems that are maintained away from thermodynamic equilibrium via molecular processes represent a class of active systems, which we call active emulsions. These systems are driven by external energy input for example…
Chemically active droplets provide simple models for cell-like systems that can grow and divide. Such active droplet systems are driven away from thermodynamic equilibrium and turn over chemically, which corresponds to a simple metabolism.…
Active emulsions and liquid crystalline shells are intriguing and experimentally realisable types of topological matter. Here we numerically study the morphology and spatiotemporal dynamics of a double emulsion, where one or two passive…
A fluid droplet suspended in an extensional flow of moderate intensity may break into pieces, depending on the amplitude of the initial droplet deformation. In subcritical uniaxial extensional flow the non-breaking base state is linearly…
Droplets are essential for spatially controlling biomolecules in cells. To work properly, cells need to control the emergence and morphology of droplets. On the one hand, driven chemical reactions can affect droplets profoundly. For…
Controlling the size of droplets, for example in biological cells, is challenging because large droplets typically outcompete smaller droplets due to surface tension. This coarsening is generally accelerated by hydrodynamic effects, but…
Multiple emulsions are a class of soft fluid in which small drops are immersed within a larger one and stabilized over long periods of time by a surfactant. We recently showed that, if a monodisperse multiple emulsion is subject to a…
Droplet microfluidics, in which micro-droplets serve as individual reactors, has enabled a wide range of high-throughput biochemical processes. Unlike solid wells typically used in current biochemical assays, droplets are subject to…
Biological cells and synthetic analogues use liquid-liquid phase separation to dynamically compartmentalize their environment for various applications. In many cases, multiple droplets need to coexist, and their size needs to be controlled,…
Conventional phase segregation is controlled by a positive interfacial tension, which implies that the system relaxes towards a state in which the interfacial area (or length) is minimized, typically manifesting as a single droplet that…
Phase separation is the thermodynamic process that explains how droplets form in multicomponent fluids. These droplets can provide controlled compartments to localize chemical reactions, and reactions can also affect the droplets' dynamics.…
We study the typical collisional velocities in a polydisperse suspension of droplets in two and three-dimensional turbulent flow and obtain precise theoretical estimates of the dependence of the impact velocity of particles-pairs on their…
Biomolecular condensates are essential for cellular organization and result from phase separation in systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Among various models, chemically active droplets play a significant role, consisting of…
Biomolecular condensates play a central role in the spatial organization of living matter. Their formation is now well understood as a form of liquid-liquid phase separation that occurs very far from equilibrium. For instance, they can be…