Abraham Sinoj, Jeong Eun Ho, Arakawa Takahiro, Shoji Shuichi, Kim Kyung Chun, Kim Il, Go Jeung Sang
Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Pusan National University, Busan 609-735, S. Korea.
Lab Chip. 2006 Jun;6(6):752-6. doi: 10.1039/b518006f. Epub 2006 Apr 10.
In this article, the development of a novel technique to fabricate spherical polymeric microcapsules by utilizing microfluidic technology is presented. Atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) was employed to synthesize well-defined amphiphilic block copolymers. An organic polymer solution was constrained to adopt the spherical droplets in a continuous water phase at a T-junction microchannel, and the generation of the droplets was studied quantitatively. The flow conditions of two immiscible solutions were adjusted for the successful generation of the polymer droplets. The morphology of the microcapsules was examined. The efficiency of these polymer microcapsules as containers for the storage and controlled release of loaded molecules was evaluated by encapsulating the microcapsules with Congo-red dye and investigating the release performance using temperature controlled UV-VIS spectroscopy.
