Novel microreactors for functional polymer beads [An article from: Chemical Engineering Journal]

This digital document is a journal article from Chemical Engineering Journal, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
A novel technique is described for preparing multiple polymeric microspheres of the same size. A monodisperse droplet suspension of an acrylic monomer was prepared in a T-shaped microchannel, and particles of accurately the same size were produced by subsequent polymerization. The droplet/particle size was varied flexibly in the range of diameters 30-120@mm by changing the flow conditions in a microfluidic device. The resulting products have a coefficient of variation (CV) below 2%. A diagram of the flow parameters showed a clear region in which monosized drops were formed successfully. Furthermore, using another microfluidic device, hemispherically colored acrylic microspheres of 90-190@mm in diameter were engineered with a coefficient of variation of less than 1%.