Microfluidic Assembly of Magnetic Hydrogel Particles with Uniformly Anisotropic Structure
Original entry: Darren Yang, AP225, Fall 2010
Reference
C.H. Chen, A.R. Abate, D. Lee, E.M. Terentjev, D.A. Weitz, “Editing Microfluidic Assembly of Magnetic Hydrogel Particles with Uniformly Anisotropic Structure,” Advanced Materials, 21, 3201–3204 (2009).
Keywords
Drop and bubble formation; Magnetic fluids and ferrofluids; Microemulsions; Micro-and nano-scale flow phenomena
Summary
The authors present a method to produce monodisperse magnetic particles from double emulsions formed using sequential flow-focus drop formation. This microfluidic drop formation allows the particles to be formed with high monodispersity and with consistently anisotropic internal structure. This structural anisotropy gives rise to magnetic anisotropy, allowing the particles to be rotated by a magnetic field.
Background
Gel particles with the incorporation of an inorganic material are used in a wide range of application. For example, microparticles consisting of magnetic materials encapsulated in a polymer matrix are of great interest in drug deliver, image enhancement, and much more. There are various polymerization methods such as microemulsion and suspension polymerization were establish and implemented to produce these particles. However, these traditional techniques have limitation on size and morphology.
The authors present an alternative technique utilizing microfluidics devices. Magnetic hydrogel particles with uniform anisotropic internal structure were produced by a flow focusing drop make using double emulsions as templates.
