This biphasic property gives Pickering emulsions immense potential in important emerging applications, such as controlled drug release or catalysis 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. More recently, the development of nanotechnology has led to a resurgence of Pickering emulsion-related research centered on the realization that the particle layer need not have a simple passive role and that the emulsions provide an accessible route into high surface area systems in which active particles sit at the interface between two immiscible liquids and are able to interact freely with the chemical compounds solubilized in both phases. Pickering emulsions are traditionally stabilized with SiO 2 or polymer particles and have significant applications, for example in food manufacturing and cosmetics where they are used to create homogeneous dispersions with good long term stability 1, 2. Pickering emulsions consist of fine liquid droplets which are covered by a layer of solid particles and dispersed in another immiscible fluid. More broadly, this strategy provides an approach to the development of surface-accessible nanomaterials with enhanced and/or additional properties from a wide range of nano-building blocks including organic nanocrystals, carbonaceous materials, metals and oxides. Freeing Pickering emulsions from chemical modifiers unlocks their potential across a range of applications including plasmonic sensing and interfacial catalysis that have previously been challenging to achieve. Here, we demonstrate a general modifier-free approach to construct Pickering emulsions by using a combination of stabilizer particles, which stabilize the emulsion droplet, and a second population of unmodified functional particles that sit alongside the stabilizers at the interface. This approach is inconvenient and potentially a dead-end for many applications since the adsorbed modifiers prevent interactions between the functional nanosurface and its surroundings. Currently, the synthesis of Pickering emulsions relies heavily on the use of strongly adsorbing molecular modifiers to tune the surface chemistry of the nanoparticle constituents.
Pickering emulsions represent an important class of functional materials with potential applications in sustainability and healthcare.
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