Efficient production of hybrid bio-nanomaterials by continuous microchannel emulsification: Dye-doped SiO2 and Au-PLGA nanoparticles

Abstract

A novel microfluidic system was designed to produce in a continuous manner hybrid nanomaterials using the microchannel double w/o/w emulsification technique. Double w/o/w nanoemulsions were produced combining two inter-digital micromixers that afford working in continuous flow and with a high reproducibility and control on the reaction conditions. High throughput production of two hybrid nanomaterials, Dye-doped SiO 2 (4 mg/min) and Au-loaded Poly(lactic-co-glycolic) acid (PLGA) (168 mg/min) nanoparticles, was achieved, showing the resulting nanomaterials excellent and reproducible optical properties and tunable loading. These hybrid nanomaterials could be potentially used in different biomedical applications. In addition, the microfluidic system designed for carrying out double emulsification enabled to decrease the particle size distribution of Dye-doped SiO 2 nanoparticles (NPs) up to 20 nm and to improve the Au NPs loading efficiency in Au-loaded PLGA hybrid nanoparticles. The excellent control achieved in the Au NPs loading allowed tuning the payload on demand. Finally, the microfluidic system designed in this work overpasses the productivity described in previously published batch-type reactors, while assuring the same properties of the resulting hybrid nanomaterials.

Rapid on-Chip Assembly of Niosomes: Batch versus Continuous Flow Reactors

“…10 It implies that larger volumes might not be well homogenized, providing a heterogeneous distribution of acoustic waves and consequent niosomes polydispersity. 27 In addition, it is reported that the cavitation generated during the ultrasonication process can etch the sonotrode tip surface, promoting a feasible product contamination with ions or particles from the sonotrode. 27 This phenomenon could be serious if the produced vesicles were aimed to be used in biomedical applications.…”

Microfluidics for silica biomaterials synthesis: opportunities and challenges

“…39,40,46 Droplet-based microreactors for the synthesis of solid silica spheres are implemented by a continuous aqueous phase and a dispersed oil phase, which can be FC-40 fluorinert oil ( Figure 7B), 99 silicon oil, 83 liquid paraffin ( Figure 7C), 108 cyclohexane and 1-hexanol ( Figure 7D). 117 Due to the precise control of reagent concentrations and residence time, synthesis in droplets could lead to a faster reaction and allow drastically improved silica nanosphere size uniformity compared with conventional bulk synthesis methods. 99 By varying the flow rates of continuous and dispersed phases, sizes of solid silica spheres from droplet flow microreactors can be controlled, and even hundreds of micrometer-or millimeter-scale silica particles can be continuously produced, 83 which is generally hard to achieve from laminar flow microreactors.…”

“…108 In addition, combining emulsion technique and interdigital mixers, droplet microreactors could achieve high throughput production with a high reproducibility ( Figure 7D). 117 3.2.2 Porous sphere-Discrete microreactors for the synthesis of porous silica sphere are generally driven by the assembly of nanosized silica particles to form around tens of micrometers products. Most studies in this area reported to date are droplet-based microreactors, research methods on segment flow microreactors are very few.…”

“…(D) Microfluidic interdigital mixer used to produce the silica nanosphere by microchannel emulsification. Reproduced with permission from ref 117. .…”

Inertial Micromixing in Curved Serpentine Micromixers with Different Curve Angles

“…Such systems require integration with micromixers to mix reagent molecules, fluids or species for chemical reactions [1], which emphasizes on the significance of mixing in micro-scale. The applications of micromixing cover a variety of fields, including biomedical systems [2], sample concentration [3], chemical synthesis [4], chemical reactors [5], polymerization [6], extraction [7], DNA purification [8], biological analysis processes [9], droplet [10] and emulsion [11] processes. The growing demand for micromixers in such fields necessitates the understanding of the involved mechanisms in order to improve their design for effective mixing.…”