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Fabrication of monodisperse, large-sized, functional biopolymeric microspheres using a low-cost and facile microfluidic device

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Abstract

We report a novel and facile method for fabricating coaxial microfluidic devices processing various dimensions at low cost, in which polypropylene hollow fibers or glass capillaries are used as the tip of the dispersed phase injection tube. With this coaxial microfluidic device, monodisperse biocompatible microspheres ranging from 300 to 800 μm were obtained by collecting oil-in-water or water-in-oil emulsions and solidifying the suspended microspheres. Microsphere size could be controlled by changing the tips or tuning the concentrations of the dispersed and continuous phases. By adding functional nanoparticles into the dispersed phase, it was demonstrated that fluorescent and magnetic microspheres can be fabricated easily using these microfluidic devices.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the financial supports by Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (No.07SG37), Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 50772022, 50772127), Shanghai Leading Academic Discipline Project (B603), the Cultivation Fund of the Key Scientific and Technical Innovation Project(No.708039), and the Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities (No.111-2-04).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, Donghua University, No. 2999, North Renmin Road, Shanghai, 201620, China

    Liping Zhu, Yaogang Li, Qinghong Zhang, Hongzhi Wang & Meifang Zhu

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  1. Liping Zhu
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  2. Yaogang Li
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  3. Qinghong Zhang
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  4. Hongzhi Wang
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  5. Meifang Zhu
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Correspondence to Hongzhi Wang or Meifang Zhu.

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Zhu, L., Li, Y., Zhang, Q. et al. Fabrication of monodisperse, large-sized, functional biopolymeric microspheres using a low-cost and facile microfluidic device. Biomed Microdevices 12, 169–177 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10544-009-9373-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10544-009-9373-x

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