Recent Advances in Smart Emulsion Materials: From Synthesis to Applications

Smart emulsions are both versatile additives to smart materials and functional smart materials themselves, acting as active components and structural elements driving innovative development. Emulsions offer versatility, ease of manipulation, and stability to smart materials. This review explores the multifaceted roles of emulsions, examining their formulation methods, applications, and role as building blocks in smart materials. The significance of emulsions in smart materials is discussed for applications such as drug delivery and adaptive coatings, as well as their role in stimuli-responsive colloidal systems and nanocomposites. The smart emulsions reviewed encompass all manner of material types, including fluid and solid/polymerized smart materials. These include both emulsions with dynamic properties and emulsions used in the process of synthesizing other materials. Smart emulsions are categorized by application into shape memory, self-healing, biological, and stimuli-responsive, with analysis of formulation methods, metrics, and methods of final incorporation. Smart emulsions can be found initially as fluid systems and some react into solid polymers, tailored to meet functional needs. A comparative analysis reveals emerging trends such as coupling coating self-healing/corrosion inhibition and use of waterborne polyurethanes. The discussion of smart emulsions concludes by outlining challenges and future directions for leveraging smart emulsions.