Several techniques to assemble artificial lipid bilayers involve the zipping of monolayers. Their efficiency is determined by the renewal of the saturated monolayers to be zipped and this proceeds by adsorption of lipids dispersed in oil as aggregates. The size of these lipids aggregates is a key parameter to ensure both the stability of the suspension and a fast release of lipids at the interface. We propose a new method inspired from the solvent-shifting nucleation process allowing to control and tune the lipid aggregates size and that improves the production of artificial membranes. It is simpler and faster than current methods starting from a dry lipid film, which are highly sensitive to environmental conditions. This method opens the route to bilayer production processes with new potentialities in membrane composition.
Keywords: Tips and Tricks.