AbstractsEngineering

Sugar-based microemulsion glasses are novel non-aqueous self-assemblies, which extend microemulsions from their liquid state to their solid state. This new type of microemulsion is optically clear and contains equal (or comparable) amounts of functional oil and glassy sugar. In this dissertation, we demonstrated the formations of sugar-based microemulsion glasses by using the selective dehydration approach and direct extrusion approach. The microstructures of the microemulsion glasses after (or before) polymerization were characterized by AFM, SANS, and HR-SEM. Sugar-based microemulsion glasses were also studied as robust templates for nanomaterial synthesis, yielding close approach to the ideal one-to-one templating. Sugar-based microemulsion glasses have immense potential applications in flavor encapsulation, nanomaterial synthesis, ultrafiltration, etc.