Preparation of monodisperse hybrid gel particles with various morphologies via flow rate and temperature control

Toshimitsu Kanai; Hiroki Nakai; Ayaka Yamada; Masafumi Fukuyama; David A Weitz

doi:10.1039/c9sm00500e

Preparation of monodisperse hybrid gel particles with various morphologies via flow rate and temperature control

Soft Matter. 2019 Sep 21;15(35):6934-6937. doi: 10.1039/c9sm00500e. Epub 2019 Aug 21.

Authors

Toshimitsu Kanai¹, Hiroki Nakai¹, Ayaka Yamada¹, Masafumi Fukuyama¹, David A Weitz²

Affiliations

¹ Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, Yokohama National University, 79-5 Tokiwadai, Hodogaya, Yokohama, Kanagawa 240-8501, Japan. tkanai@ynu.ac.jp.
² Dept. of Physics and SEAS, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.

PMID: 31432865
DOI: 10.1039/c9sm00500e

Abstract

We report a facile method for preparing monodisperse hybrid smart gel particles with various morphologies by using microfluidic techniques and the swelling-shrinking phenomenon of thermosensitive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) gel particles. We demonstrate that PNIPAM-polyacrylamide snowman-like, raspberry-like, and dumbbell-like hybrid gel particles can be prepared by controlling the flow rate and temperature.