Preparation of Hydrophobic Microspheres From O / W Emulsion

Abstract

Membrane emulsification technology (MET) provides a one-step and compatible solution, which could fabricate uniform hydrophobic microspheres from ten to dozens of microns just by directly emulsifying the hydrophobic monomer or polymer solution into uniform O/W emulsion and carrying out suspension polymerization or combining with other techniques such as solvent evaporation of emulsion in to target particle. This chapter introduces the typical procedures to fabricate the hydrophobic polymer microspheres, and discusses the controlling factors on the particle size, size-uniformity, and morphology of microspheres. During cross-flow MET, various parameters from different magnitudes would exertcombined actions, including interfacial surface property and the macroscopic operation conditions. Advantage of membrane emulsification process is that uniform polymer microspheres can also be prepared with an organic solution of a preformed polymer as the oil phase. By combing MET and polymerization process, the chapter summarizes the critical factors manipulating the structure formation of porous polymer microspheres and explored their mechanism during morphology evolution.