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Microfluidic synthesis of anisotropic particles from Janus drop by in situ photopolymerization

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Abstract

Purpose

This study presents a microfluidic method to generate anisotropic particles from Janus drop with high flexibility to control their shapes by in situ photopolymerization.

Methods

Janus drops are continuously formed as the oil phase breaks up the two laminar flows of a photocurable fluid and a sacrificial template. Our method to generate anisotropic particles includes two routes: In situ polymerization of Janus drop in equilibrium state and evolved drop in nonequilibrium state.

Results

The resulting drop has allowed us to synthesize hemispheres with flat bottom and 3D particles. Also, the formation of the Janus drop and their evolution is theoretically estimated by spreading coefficient.

Conclusions

We anticipate that this novel fabrication approach presented in this work can be applied to produce novel functional material in various applications such as self-assembly, photonics, diagnostics, and drug-delivery.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, 305-764, Korea

    Chang-Hyung Choi, Sora Hwang, Jae-Min Jeong, Sung-Min Kang, Jongmin Kim & Chang-Soo Lee

Authors
  1. Chang-Hyung Choi
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  2. Sora Hwang
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  3. Jae-Min Jeong
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  4. Sung-Min Kang
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  5. Jongmin Kim
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  6. Chang-Soo Lee
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chang-Soo Lee.

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Choi, CH., Hwang, S., Jeong, JM. et al. Microfluidic synthesis of anisotropic particles from Janus drop by in situ photopolymerization. Biomed. Eng. Lett. 2, 95–99 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13534-012-0057-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13534-012-0057-8

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