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Polymeric nanoparticles have important applications in drug delivery, biotechnology, diagnostics and energy harvesting. We report a new technique named electrospray nanoprecipitation, which combines electrospray with agitated solvent displacement. The process enables one-step formation of polymeric nanoparticles <100 nm in size that are near-monodisperse with a diameter range significantly lower than could be obtained using either electrospray or agitated solvent displacement technique alone. Both reduction of polymer solution concentration and the addition of poly(vinyl alcohol) emulsifier in the water-non-solvent medium further reduce the average particle diameter. The technique provides an effective and straightforward method to further reduce the size range of near-monodisperse nanoparticles achievable in a single step, which can be readily adapted for reducing the achievable size range of core-shell structures using popular one-step encapsulation techniques such as coaxial electrospray.

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In this work, using multiple co-flows we demonstrate in-situ encapsulation of nano-particles, liquids and/or gases in different structural morphologies, which can also be deposited in a designated pattern by a direct write method and surface modification can be controlled to release encapsulated material. The range of possibilities offered by exposing a material solution to an applied electric field can result in a plethora of structures which can accommodate a whole host of biomedical applications from microfluidic devices (microchannels, loaded with various materials), printed 3D structures and patterns, lab-on-a-chip devices to encapsulated materials (capsules, tubes, fibres, dense multi-layered fibrous networks) for drug delivery and tissue engineering. The structures obtained in this way can vary in size from micrometer to the nanometer range and the processing is viable for all states of matter. The work shown demonstrates some novel structures and methodologies for processing a biomaterial

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