Dynamic interfacial properties of droplets relevant to W/O-emulsion-forming systems

The ESA FASES project aims to give new insights in the understanding of emulsion aging under microgravity conditions. Half of the planned experiments consist in dilute and transparent binary (water in oil or oil in water emulsions) that will be studied using optical tomographic microscopy (OTM) with transmitted illumination. The microscope prototype characteristics are similar to the ones that are will be used in the international space station FSL for microgravity experiments. It consists in a microscope, a motorized stage, a standard CCD camera and a digitized frame grabber. The on going process is now image analysis software validation in order to allow a 3D reconstruction of the scanned emulsion domains for further investigations like droplet dynamics or aggregates formation kinetics. Main advantage of OTM here is to allow fast and non intrusive investigation of the bulk emulsions properties and hence to prevent measurement perturbations and wall effects.