Stability of near-surface ordering of bicontinuous microemulsions in external shear-fields

Abstract

The lubrication effect of bicontinuous microemulsions describes a facilitated flow along hydrophilic planar surfaces because the fluid forms lamellar domains that can slide off along each other much better than randomly ordered domains. The applicability of this effect is based on the prerequisite of the lamellar structure not being destroyed by external shear-fields. In this paper, we demonstrate that the lamellar structure is highly stable for shear rates of up to 600 s^-1 using neutron reflectivity and grazing incidence small angle neutron scattering experiments. The transition structure that consists of perforated lamellae is attacked by the flow, and the bicontinuous microemulsion comes closer to the solid interface when shear is applied. All of this verifies the stability of the lubrication effect for technical applications.