Microfluidic‐Assisted Synthesis of Polymer Particles

Abstract

Microfluidic devices have recently emerged as promising tools for the synthesis of polymer particles. Over conventional processes, microfluidic-assisted processes allow the production of polymer particles with an improved control over their sizes, size distributions, morphologies, and compositions. In this paper, the most common microfluidic devices are reviewed. Both projection photolithography and emulsification processes are reported for the continuous flow synthesis of polymer particles from a stream of polymerizable liquids. For the latter process, two distinct categories of microfluidic devices have been identified: microchannel-based and capillary-based microsystems. For each category, the existing geometries are described and the different emulsification methods including the coflowing, cross-flowing, or flow-focusing of the continuous and dispersed phases are commented upon. Finally, for each microsystem the various polymer particles achieved in such devices including, but not restricted to, janus, core-shell, or porous particles and capsules are reported.

Fabrication, Assembly, and Application of Patchy Particles

“…Note that here the particles have compartments of different functionality rather then just surface patches of varying functionality. There are two general approaches using capillary fluid flow for patchy particle production: i) microfluidics, [99] and, ii) electrohydrodynamic co-jetting. [15] The microfluidic technique has been used to produce Janus or ternary droplets of immiscible monomers, emulsified in an aqueous solution.…”

Porous polymer particles—A comprehensive guide to synthesis, characterization, functionalization and applications

“…The closest review on this topic by Okay in 2000 [1] deals more with particle characteristics, explains the methods of production and characterization briefly and lacks discussion about applications. Although in literature there are several reviews for polymer particles (not specifically porous), the older ones [1][2][3] merely cover the conventional methods (suspension, emulsion, dispersion, precipitation, seeded) while the new ones [4][5][6] only focus on the new methods (membrane/microchannel emulsification and microfluidics). To the best of our knowledge, we gathered in this review for the first time all the manufacture methods, including some less known methods.…”

A numerical study on the dynamics of droplet formation in a microfluidic double T-junction

“…[1][2][3][4][5] Mini-emulsion, emulsion, precipitation polymerization, and soap-free emulsion polymerization are the methods used to prepare monodisperse micro particles. However, most of those methods are either material-specific or timeconsuming, and seldom provide a sufficiently narrow size distribution of the resulting particles, which is very important for quality control in the aforementioned applications.…”

“…Fax: þ82 53 810 2062. and reproducibility. 4,6,11,12 Moreover, by optimizing flow conditions, the resulting droplets can be uniform with easy size control.…”