Chapter 5. Applications of Stimuli-responsive Functional Colloids

Colloidal dispersions of particles have an exceptionally long history across a wide range of formulated product and functional material applications. Over the last 20 years or so, the use of environmentally responsive polymers as a key component of the colloidal particles, whether in the core, on the surface or both, has increased the range of particle functionalities and opened up an additional range of applications for these systems that we will review here. We will briefly introduce the different types of particles we aim to concentrate on and give examples of the range of responsive polymers used for their preparation. We then focus our attention on describing a broad range of applications for these systems ranging from chemical and biological sensors, emulsifiers, drug delivery and optical devices.