Crystal Comets: A Geometric Model for Sculpting Anisotropic Particles from Emulsions

Microscopic high aspect ratio particles have many applications including enhanced delivery of active ingredients and food stability. Here, we develop a simple, scalable process that produces particles with a continuously controllable aspect ratio. Oil-in-water emulsion droplets are quenched and crystallize in the presence of surfactants that facilitate the ejection of the solid oil phase from its liquid precursor. Tuning the ejection and crystallization rates to be comparable, by adjusting the surfactant concentration and quench depth, promotes anisotropic particle growth by continuously ejecting solidified oil from the precursor droplet as the crystallization proceeds. We predict the accessible morphologies using an analytical geometric model that indicates a nonconstant contact angle during the crystallization process. We see that the crystal aspect ratio is dependent on the surfactant concentration, which can be explained as a variation of the maximum growth angle achieved during crystallization.