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Polymeric microcapsules with internal cavities for ultrasonic imaging: efficient fabrication and physical characterization

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Abstract

Polymeric microcapsules are of great potential in ultrasonic imaging due to their characteristic hollow structure. Water-in-oil-in-water (W1/O/W2) double emulsion-solvent evaporation technique is a versatile strategy applicable to most hydrophobic polymers for fabricating microcapsules; however, the adjustment of the size and inner structure of resultant microcapsules have not been systematically studied until now. Here, we evaluate in detail the parameters in double emulsification and find that the W1/O volume ratio is a pivotal parameter which controls the hollow structure of microcapsules. In addition, an appropriate concentration of emulsifier in W2 is essential to guarantee the hollow structure as well. For quantitatively characterizing the hollow structure of microcapsules, we propose the concept of Hollow Ratio (HR) and Hollow Degree (HD) to evaluate the percent of hollow microcapsules in products and the hollow characteristic of the microcapsules. Our study demonstrates that the HR of microcapsules can vary between 25% and 98% by only adjusting the W1/O volume ratio. The size of microcapsule has a close relationship to its HD. Moreover, the microcapsules with both single cavity and multicavities have been fabricated by altering the energy of the second emulsification. Further, acoustic studies reveal that the microcapsules with different HD display obviously different sound attenuation spectrum and resonance frequency, which demonstrates that the adjustment of hollow structure should be an effective approach to control the acoustical properties of microcapsules for ultrasonic imaging.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 30600751 and 30772349) as well as Science and Technology Committee of Shanghai (Project No. 05XD14015). We thank Instrumental Analysis Center of Shanghai Jiao Tong University for the help in characterization.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Lab of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Rong Lu, Hongjing Dou & Kang Sun

  2. Institute of Acoustics, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, China

    Yuanyuan Qiu & Dong Zhang

  3. Shanghai Children’s Medical Center, Shanghai, 200127, China

    Yuqi Zhang & Kun Sun

Authors
  1. Rong Lu
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  2. Hongjing Dou
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  3. Yuanyuan Qiu
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  4. Dong Zhang
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  5. Kang Sun
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  6. Yuqi Zhang
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  7. Kun Sun
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Correspondence to Kang Sun.

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Lu, R., Dou, H., Qiu, Y. et al. Polymeric microcapsules with internal cavities for ultrasonic imaging: efficient fabrication and physical characterization. Colloid Polym Sci 287, 683–693 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00396-009-2014-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00396-009-2014-3

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