(27d) Functional Particles and Microcapsules

Functional Particles
& Microcapsules

Simon Biggs and Alison Tasker

School of Chemical
Engineering, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia QLD 4072

E-mail: simon.biggs@uq.edu.au

Over
the last few within our research group we have developed a number of bespoke
microcapsule and particle designs tailored to the characteristics of the material
to be encapsulated. In this presentation, examples of core-shell particles for
use as semi-permeable and impermeable microcapsules for the encapsulation of
large and small molecular weight materials will be discussed.

For
semi-permeable capsules, I will show how we can use environment-responsive
polymers to manage the permeability of polymer shells built around emulsion
droplet precursors. I will also briefly introduce the potential of membrane
emulsification techniques to manufacture these capsules on multi-litre scales.

Finally,
I will discuss a recently developed method for the preparation of metal-coated
emulsion droplets for the long-term retention of small, volatile encapsulated
species. I will indicate the key aspects of the synthesis method for such metal
shells and demonstrate our ability to control the thickness of the shell
deposited on the surface of the droplets and exemplify the release properties
of these microcapsules.