Emulsion route in fabrication of micro and nanocontainers for biomimetic self-healing and self-protecting functional coatings

Designing of novel self-healing materials possessing an active feedback on various destructive factors is one of most quickly developing areas in contemporary material engineering. Self-healing and self-protecting coatings represent one of particular classes of these materials that able on damage to recover their anticorrosive or antifouling function. Most established approach to impart to the coating this ability is nowadays the use of container-based structures when the protective agent trapped in containers is embedded in the coating matrix. There are different ways to produce containers for the further incorporation into coating but the role of emulsion route in the containers preparation is probably predominant. Herein, the contemporary achievements in the field of emulsion encapsulation are reviewed. Several types of containers for biomimetic functional coatings synthesized via emulsion as an initial system are presented based mainly on the earlier published and very recently obtained results of our research group. An overview is given of some interfacial physical and chemical methods utilized for the transformation of emulsion droplets into nano- or microscaled containers showing their specific advantages and drawbacks. Successful incorporation of containers in the diverse types of coatings showed is promising for novel materials production in many application fields.