Production of synthetic petroleum with non-catalytic rays
An emulsion is a mixture of two or more immiscible liquids in which a discontinuous phase is dispersed into a continuous phase. A typical emulsion is oil-water system, which has many significant applications in various industries such as food, pharmaceutical, tissue engineering and cosmetic industries. In the past decades, oil-in-oil emulsions have attracted great interest due to their special non-aqueous property, which complements traditional oil-water emulsion systems, and realize the usage of chemicals that are incompatible with water. In addition, similar to oil-water systems, oil-in-oil emulsions can also be stabilized by block copolymers and solid particles. In this review, the construction and formation mechanism of oil-in-oil emulsions were introduced. Then, the recent advances in stabilizing strategies of oil-in-oil emulsions were summarized, and the applications of oil-in-oil emulsions in biomedicine, polymerization and cosmetics were discussed. Finally, the development direction of non-aqueous emulsions was prospected. This review provides a reference for the preparation and application of oil-in-oil emulsions.