Enhanced-throughput production of polymersomes using a parallelized capillary microfluidic device

Abstract

We report a parallelized capillary microfluidic device for enhanced production rate of monodisperse polymersomes. This device consists of four independent capillary microfluidic devices, operated in parallel; each device produces monodisperse water-in-oil-in-water (W/O/W) doubleemulsion drops through a single-step emulsification. During generation of the double-emulsion drops, the innermost water drop is formed first and it triggers a breakup of the middle oil phase over wide range of flow rates; this enables robust and stable formation of the double-emulsion drops in all drop makers of the parallelized device. Double-emulsion drops are transformed to polymersomes through a dewetting of the amphiphile-laden middle oil phase on the surface of the innermost water drop, followed by the subsequent separation of the oil drop. Therefore, we can make polymersomes with a production rate enhanced by a factor given by the number of drop makers in the parallelized device.

Microfluidics for Production of Particles: Mechanism, Methodology, and Applications

“…Lipidic vesicles have also been produced via T‐junction droplets breaking (Figure b) . Importantly, the viscosity of the outer water phase helps improving the flow focusing geometry, while the volatility of the organic solvent favors the self‐assembly of the amphiphiles, facilitating the formation process . Two different mechanisms have been proposed for the formation of the vesicles from the double emulsion: the evaporation of the organic solvent induces the formation of a depletion force, which in turn initiate the dewetting process (Figure c) .…”

Parallel microfluidic synthesis of size-tunable polymeric nanoparticles using 3D flow focusing towards in vivo study

“…For example, changing the platform’s architecture to tolerate higher internal pressure affects the mixing time and the physicochemical properties of the NPs. Therefore, parallelization of the microchannels is a promising way to meet the NP production yields required for in vivo studies; such parallel process approaches have been studied for emulsion droplet generation 22–27 and in the chemical engineering industry. 28 …”

Microfluidic fabrication of polymersomes enclosing an active Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction: Effect on their stability of solute concentrations in the external media

“…We note, however, that the final diameter of the vesicles differed from the initial droplet's core diameter (see in Figure S2 the thin shell droplets), which was, in addition, different from previously reported values. [33] We also note that during the assembly and solvent evaporation process (illustrated by the red arrows in Figure 1c) excess polymer attached to one pole of the vesicles, a phenomenon that has also been previously observed on both polymersomes and liposomes. [34] To monitor diameter change and visualize the droplet-to-vesicle evolution process, we transferred the droplets to a cavity glass slide that was subsequently covered with a cover slide.…”