Bicontinuous Soft Solids with a Gradient in Channel Size

This paper presents examples of bicontinuous interfacially jammed emulsion gels (“bijels”) with a designed gradient in the channel size along the sample. These samples are created by quenching binary fluids which have a gradient in particle concentration along the sample, since the channel size is determined by the local particle concentration. A gradient in local particle concentration is
achieved using a two-stage loading process, with different particle volume fractions in each stage. Confocal microscopy and image analysis are used to quantitatively measure the channel size of the bijels. Bijels with a gradient in channel size of up to 2.8%/mm have been created. Such tailored soft materials could act as templates for energy materials optimized for both high ionic transport rates (high power) and high interfacial area (high energy density), potentially making them useful in novel energy applications.