Liquid–Fluid Coatings, Surfaces and Interfaces

Liquid–fluid interfaces are ubiquitous in science and technology, and are currently considered promising candidates for confining different types of materials, for example, polymers, surfactants, colloids, or even small molecules, by direct spreading or self-assembly from solutions in the design of new functional materials. This has fostered, in current years, many research efforts to address both the physicochemical characterization of liquid–fluid interfaces and the design of innovative technological solutions based on interfacial systems.

The section “Liquid–Fluid Coatings, Surfaces and Interfaces” is a platform for the publication of research papers and reviews framed within the complex fluids category. Among this type of system, all those colloidal and supramolecular systems, in which the fluid/fluid interfaces are used as supports enabling the fabrication of hierarchical supramolecular structures can be included. Furthermore, from a physicochemical perspective materials assembled at liquid–fluid interfaces can be interesting by themselves because they can be used as a model to shed light on the effects of the interfacial confinement on the interactions between trapped molecules and objects, as well as on their dynamics. The understanding of such aspects is very important because interfacial systems present equilibrium and dynamic properties, which in most cases, differ significantly from those of 3D counterparts. Therefore, the understanding of the physicochemical properties of 2D systems trapped at liquid–fluid interfaces combined with the study of the physicochemical bases underlying the assembly of materials at such interfaces supported process has a key role in optimizing the manufacture of mechanically stable supramolecular systems. These systems impact decisively on several scientific and technological fields, such as food science, cosmetics, biology, oil recovery, electronics, drug delivery, detergency, and tissue engineering. This makes the understanding of the theoretical and practical aspects involved in the preparation of interfacial systems a critical point to improve their usage for designing new technological systems.

Fundamental and applied works providing new insights into liquid–fluid interfaces from a physical, chemical, material science, engineering, biophysical, and other related areas approaches are very welcomed.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following:

• Assembly of surfactant, polymer, particles, and their mixtures at liquid-fluid interfaces.
• Particle-laden interfaces.
• Interfacial rheology and dynamics.
• Functional liquid-fluid interfaces.
• Lung surfactant layers.
• Interfacial flows.
• Spreading, evaporation, and patterning.
• Emulsions and foams.