Rheology of emulsions

The review is devoted to the historical and modern understanding of rheological properties of emulsions in a broad range of concentration. In the limiting case of dilute emulsions, the discussion is based on the analogy and differences in properties of suspensions and emulsions. For concentrated emulsions, the main peculiarities of their rheological behaviour are considered. Different approaches to understand the concentration dependencies of viscosity are presented and compared. The effects of non-Newtonian flow curves and the apparent transition to yielding with increasing concentration of the dispersed phase are discussed. The problem of droplet deformation in shear fields is touched. The highly concentrated emulsions (beyond the limit of closest packing of spherical particles) are treated as visco-plastic media, and the principle features of their rheology (elasticity, yielding, concentration and droplet size dependencies) are considered. A special attention is paid to the problem of shear stability of drops of an internal phase starting from the theory of the single drop behaviour, including approaches for the estimation of drops' stability in concentrated emulsions. Polymer blends are also treated as emulsions, though taking into account their peculiarities due to the coexistence of two interpenetrated phases. Different theoretical models of deformation of polymer drops were discussed bearing in mind the central goal of predictions of the visco-elastic properties of emulsions as functions of the properties of individual components and the interfacial layer. The role of surfactants is discussed from the point of view of stability of emulsions in time and their special influence on the rheology of emulsions.