Simulations and Topological Data Analysis for Characterization of Particle-Stabilized Emulsion Gels

Bicontinuous interfacially jammed emulsion gels (bijels) offer a versatile platform for emulsion templating of functional porous materials, including membranes, electrodes, and tissue-mimetic biomaterials. Characterization of the morphology of emulsion templates is an important step in developing fabrication methods for porous materials with tunable microstructure. Domain coarsening in emulsions is commonly studied in terms of the characteristic domain size, however, a single length scale does not convey information about local geometrical and topological features of the morphology. We employ topological concepts to analyze data from Lattice-Boltzmann-Molecular Dynamics simulations of binary fluids with ellipsoidal magnetic particles, and show that the number of channels decreases during coarsening following a power law. The results facilitate a more detailed characterization of the domain evolution during coarsening, which can guide the design of tunable emulsion templates.