Compound-fluidic electrospray: An efficient method for the fabrication of microcapsules with multicompartment structure

Abstract

Microcapsules with multiple compartments are of significant importance in many applications such as smart drug delivery, microreactor, complicated sensor, and so on. Here we report a novel compound-fluidic electrospray method that could fabricate multicompartment microcapsules in a single step. The as-prepared microcapsules have multiple compartments inside. The compartments are separated from each other by inner walls made from shell materials, and different content can be independently loaded in each of them without any contact. We assemble a hierarchical compound nozzle by inserting certain numbers of metallic inner capillaries separately into a blunt metal needle. The particular configuration of the compound nozzle induces a completely and independently envelope of core fluids by shell fluid, as a result of which mulicomponent microcapsules with multicompartment structure can be obtained. And also, the number of inner compartments and the corresponding encapsulated components can be controlled by rationally designing the configuration of the compound nozzle. This general method can be readily extended to many other functional materials, especially for the effective encapsulation of active ingredients, such as sensitive and reactive materials.