Facile microfluidic fabrication of biocompatible hydrogel microspheres in a novel microfluidic device
Poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) microgels with tuneable size and porosity find applications as extracellular matrix mimics for tissue-engineering scaffolds, biosensors, and drug carriers. Monodispersed PEGDA microgels were produced by modular droplet microfluidics using the dispersed phase with 49–99 wt% PEGDA, 1 wt% Darocur 2959, and 0–50 wt% water, while the continuous phase was 3.5 wt% silicone-based surfactant dissolved in silicone oil. Pure PEGDA droplets were fully cured within 60 s at the UV light intensity of 75 mW/cm2. The droplets with higher water content required more time for curing. Due to oxygen inhibition, the polymerisation started in the droplet centre and advanced towards the edge, leading to a temporary solid core/liquid shell morphology, confirmed by tracking the Brownian motion of fluorescent latex nanoparticles within a droplet. A volumetric shrinkage during polymerisation was 1–4% for pure PEGDA droplets and 20–32% for the droplets containing 10–40 wt% water. The particle volume increased by 36–50% after swelling in deionised water. The surface smoothness and sphericity of the particles decreased with increasing water content in the dispersed phase. The porosity of swollen particles was controlled from 29.7% to 41.6% by changing the water content in the dispersed phase from 10 wt% to 40 wt%.
History
School
- Science
Department
- Chemical Engineering
Published in
MoleculesVolume
27Issue
13Pages
1 - 16Publisher
MDPI AGVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
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© The AuthorsPublisher statement
This is an Open Access Article. It is published by MDPI under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Acceptance date
2022-06-20Publication date
2022-06-22Copyright date
2022eISSN
1420-3049Publisher version
Language
- en