Continuous-flow microfluidic device for synthesis of cationic porous polystyrene microspheres as sorbents of p-xylene from physiological saline

Abstract

New developments in microfabrication techniques have enabled the fabrication of very efficient emulsification microstructured devices which along with capillaries of small dimensions allow emulsifying a fluid in another immiscible fluid. Droplet-based microfluidics is a versatile tool for widespread applications due to the following advantages: production of monodisperse droplets, high surface-area-to-volume ratio, and independent control of each droplet. The main goal of this work was to design cationic polystyrene microspheres with the developed surface structure using microfluidic technology. We investigated the influence of monomer phase composition on the size, polydispersity index (PDI), the size distribution and surface structure the resulting microspheres. Polymer microspheres with different surface structure are thus obtained as proven by extensive morphological characterizations using electronic and optical microscopies. Moreover, the structure of crosslinked microspheres was investigated by FTIR spectroscopy. Besides morphology, microspheres with various compositions were synthesized and their potential application highlighted: microspheres with grafted chains of polymer stabilizer (PVP) in surface layer have great potential for effective sorption of p-xylene from physiological saline.