In-situ photopolymerization of monodisperse and discoid oxidized methacrylated alginate microgels in a microfluidic channel

Shuo Wang; Oju Jeon; Peter G Shankles; Yuan Liu; Eben Alsberg; Scott T Retterer; Bruce P Lee; Chang Kyoung Choi

doi:10.1063/1.4941339

In-situ photopolymerization of monodisperse and discoid oxidized methacrylated alginate microgels in a microfluidic channel

Biomicrofluidics. 2016 Feb 3;10(1):011101. doi: 10.1063/1.4941339. eCollection 2016 Jan.

Authors

Shuo Wang¹, Oju Jeon², Peter G Shankles, Yuan Liu³, Eben Alsberg, Scott T Retterer, Bruce P Lee³, Chang Kyoung Choi¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics, Michigan Technological University , Houghton, Michigan 49931, USA.
² Department of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University , Cleveland, Ohio 44106, USA.
³ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Michigan Technological University , Houghton, Michigan 49931, USA.

Abstract

We present a simple microfluidic technique to in-situ photopolymerize (by 365 nm ultraviolet) monodisperse oxidized methacrylated alginate (OMA) microgels using a photoinitiator (VA-086). By this technique, we generated monodisperse spherical OMA beads and discoid non-spherical beads with better shape consistency than ionic crosslinking methods do. We found that a high monomer concentration (8 w/v %), a high photoinitiator concentration (1.5 w/v %), and absence of oxygen are critical factors to cure OMA microgels. This photopolymerizing method is an alternative to current methods to form alginate microgels and is a simpler approach to generate non-spherical alginate microgels.

Abstract

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