Functional Polymeric Microcapsules from Double Emulsion Drop Templates

Abstract: Microcapsules are useful and versatile encapsulation architectures that protect liquid active ingredients in their core from the environment. The spatial separation of liquid cargo and solid encapsulation material enables the independent choice of and limited detrimental interactions between these two phases: while the stability of the encapsulant is mostly dependent on its liquid core environment, the protective capability and release functionality is purely determined by the shell material. Since most microcapsules systems use a destructive release mechanism, the complexity of their applications is limited. Microcapsules that reversibly respond to external stimuli by changing the shell membrane’s property without structural degradation would enable on-demand release through shells that dynamically react to changes in their environment, as well as microcapsules that can be used and reused as refillable micro-containers. To achieve such reversibly stimuli-responsive microcapsules, we developed novel fabrication methods and chemistries using double emulsion drop templating. In this talk, I will discuss pH- and ion-responsive hydrogel shell membranes that are directly synthesized around liquid water drops, as well as polymeric microcapsules with shells that exhibit trigger-responsive 3-D connected mesopores with ordered gyroidal morphology from block copolymer self-assembly. 

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