Universal nanodroplet branches from confining the Ouzo effect.

ABSTRACT: We report the self-organization of universal branching patterns of oil nanodroplets under the Ouzo effect [Vitale S, Katz J (2003) Langmuir 19:4105-4110]-a phenomenon in which spontaneous droplet formation occurs upon dilution of an organic solution of oil with water. The mixing of the organic and aqueous phases is confined under a quasi-2D geometry. In a manner analogous to the ramification of ground stream networks [Devauchelle O, Petroff AP, Seybold HF, Rothman DH (2012) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109: 20832-20836 and Cohen Y, et al. (2015) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112:14132-14137] but on a scale 10 orders of magnitude smaller, the angles between the droplet branches are seen to exhibit remarkable universality, with a value around 74° ± 2°, independent of the various cont

SUBMITTER: Lu Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5625903 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature