Polymeric Microcapsules for Synthetic Applications

Abstract

For decades scientists have been working on closed systems for transportation, catalysis and protection, which are inspired by natural cells. Only recently polymer based systems have emerged for these systems, since they are more robust, give protection from the environment and give a more stable membrane. Various methods have been developed to prepare polymer based capsules. They can be made by self-assembly, templating, in situ polymerization or precipitation. Their application has been explored in various areas e.g. drug delivery, diagnostics, sensors and nano reactors. Considering the output in this field has substantially grown, more developments can be expected from this latter application.

Oxygen delivery using engineered microparticles

“…We developed a two-stage, emulsion-based approach that uses a phase separation step to generate core-shell particles followed by a spontaneous selfemulsification step that results in the formation of an interconnected porous network within the shell structure. PLGA was chosen as the shell material because of its documented use in the medical device and pharmaceutical industry and for its ability to form core-shell structures using phase separation (24,25). To manufacture PHMs, PLGA (shell material), perfluorooctyl bromide (nonsolvent) (PFOB) and Pluronic F-68 (self-emulsifying agent) were dissolved in dicholoromethane (common solvent) (DCM) and emulsified in an aqueous solution [0.5 wt% polyvinylppyrrolidone (PVP)] to produce an oil-in-water emulsion (Fig.…”

Recent trends in the tuning of polymersomes’ membrane properties

“…It has to be noted that the self-assembly of block copolymers is obviously not the only way to develop hollow vesicular or polymer architectures that can be also achieved using other methodologies such as layer-by-layer deposition [9] phase separation or template-assisted polymerization techniques [10,11]. These methods and the applications of the resulting vesicular structures as nano-reactors have been recently reviewed [12].…”

The influence of size and charge of chitosan/polyglutamic acid hollow spheres on cellular internalization, viability and blood compatibility

“…In the past few decade there has been growing interest in the design of biomaterial-based delivery vehicles to use them as a depot for various therapeutic molecules e.g. gene, growth factors [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Among several methods for the fabrication of hollow spherical structures from synthetic or natural polymer, the template based method is an attractive in creating monodisperse nano to micron-sized hollow spheres [7].…”