Oil and Water Become One | How to Mix the Unmixable

Conventional wisdom says oil and water don’t mix. Stir up incompatible, unmixable substances and, most of the time, you’ll end up with the same, unmixed materials and a big mess. This common perception is generally correct but not always. Two distinct, normally non mixing substances can come together under the right circumstances.

These magical blends are known as colloids.

They’re special mixtures, in which microscopically dispersed insoluble particles of one substance are suspended throughout another. In the case of milk, tiny droplets of oil are suspended in water.

Milk is an example of conventional wisdom being totally wrong. Two different materials, in this case, oil and water, combine into a form dissimilar to both starting materials. Materials remind me of lichens, where two different life forms, like a bacteria and a fungus, form a symbiosis to create something emergent and totally novel.

Vanadium features video explorations of the many fascinations of materials scientist, Christopher Rankin PhD.

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In case the audience can't tell, the host likes colloids way too much.