Polymerization of Electric Field-Centered Double Emulsion Droplets to Create Polyacrylate Shells

Tucker-Schwartz, AK; Bei, Z; Garrell, RL; Jones, TB

HERO ID

1970619

Reference Type

Journal Article

Year

2010

Language

English

PMID

21082795

HERO ID 1970619
In Press No
Year 2010
Title Polymerization of Electric Field-Centered Double Emulsion Droplets to Create Polyacrylate Shells
Authors Tucker-Schwartz, AK; Bei, Z; Garrell, RL; Jones, TB
Journal Langmuir
Volume 26
Issue 24
Page Numbers 18606-18611
Abstract Porous and hollow particles are widely used in pharmaceuticals, as solid phases for chromatography, as catalyst supports, in bioanalytical assays and medical diagnostics, and in many other applications. By controlling size, shape, and chemistry, it is possible to tune the physical and chemical properties of the particles. In some applications of millimeter-scale hollow shells, such as in high energy density physics, controlling the shell thickness uniformity (concentricity) and roundness (sphericity) becomes particularly important. In this work, we demonstrate the feasibility of using electric field-driven droplet centering to form highly spherical and concentric polymerizable double emulsion (DE) droplets that can be subsequently photopolymerized into polymer shells. Specifically, when placed under the influence of an similar to 6 x 10(4) V-rms/m field at 20 MHz, DE droplets, consisting of silicone oil as the inner droplet and tripropylene glycol diacrylate with a photoinitiator in N,N-dimethylacetamide as the outer droplet, suspended in ambient silicone oil, were found to undergo electric field-driven centering into droplets with >= 98% sphericity and similar to 98% concentricity. The centered DE droplets were photopolymerized in the presence of the electric field. The high degrees of sphericity and concentricity were maintained in the polymerized particles. The poly(propylene glycol diacrylate) capsules are just within the sphericity requirements needed for inertial confinement fusion experiments. They were slightly outside the concentricity requirement. These results suggest that electric field-driven centering and polymerization of double emulsions could be very useful for synthesizing hollow polymer particles for applications in high energy density physics experiments and other applications of concentric polymer shells.
Doi 10.1021/la103719z
Pmid 21082795
Wosid WOS:000285217700005
Is Certified Translation No
Dupe Override No
Is Public Yes
Language Text English