Shear-triggered coalescence

In prior work, it was observed that some bitumen droplets coalesced faster when colliding in shear than colliding head-on. Inspired by this observation, we aimed to reproduce the same behavior in a simpler system composed of pure oil, water, and surfactants/particles. Using a cantilevered-capillary force apparatus we observed this phenomenon for droplets stabilized by cellulose nanocrystals and coined the term ``shear-triggered coalescence'' to describe it.