Microencapsulation of liquid and solid substances by reactive polymers

Abstract

This study is devoted to the development of techniques for the formation of polymeric microcapsules (MC) with either liquid or solid core and with the polymer shell containing diverse functional groups on the basis of new reactive functional copolymers (FC). Two approaches to the formation of MC containing FC shell that included the stages of “oil-in-water” or “water-in-oil” dispersion preparation followed by slow extraction of solvents from dispersed phase by dispersive media were examined. FC with the same structure was successfully applied for both “oil-in-water” and “water-in-oil” systems. Spherical MC with the liquid hydrocarbon core demonstrated essential increase in their volume after heating at the temperature exceeding a boiling point of hydrocarbon encapsulated. Presence of reactive groups in the MC shell opens up new opportunity for further tuning the MC properties via their interaction with proper compounds, particularly via graft-polymerisation of diverse vinyl monomers initiated from the MC surface.