Dresden 2017 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 47: Fluids and Interfaces I

CPP 47.1: Hauptvortrag

Mittwoch, 22. März 2017, 16:15–16:45, ZEU 255

Hard science with soft spheres: learning from foams and emulsions — •Wiebke Drenckhan-Andreatta — Institut Charles Sadron, CNRS UPR22, Srasbourg, France

Who has not marvelled at the delicate organisation of bubbles floating on top of a beer or a bathtub? Or similarly, of oil drops hovering on the surface of a soup or a vinaigrette? Under gravity, those soft and frictionless bubbles and drops snuggle neatly together, creating sphere-type packings where the influence of gravity is small, and polyhedral packings, where the influence of gravity is important.

Being able to understand and to predict these packings has challenged physicists and mathematicians alike; and their close collaboration has brought forward an increasingly deep understanding of the intriguing features that characterise the packing procedures and the final structure of foams and emulsions.

Building on these advances, physical chemists are now joining this subject. The necessity of stabilising foams or emulsions with interfacially active agents (soap-like molecules, block-copolyers, particles,...), provides a vast playground to tune (and to understand) the interactions of these soft spheres via specific modifications of their surfaces: How do the interactions change if the bubbles/drops are covered by a visco-elastic skin? How to they pack if this skin creates non-negligible friction? And what if these spheres are adhesive?

In this presentation I will give an overview of the state of the art of this interdisciplinary field in bridging historical aspects with recent findings.