One-step flow synthesis of size-controlled polymer nanogels in a fluorocarbon microfluidic chip.

ABSTRACT: Synthetic polymer nanoparticles (NPs) with biomimetic properties are ideally suited for different biomedical applications such as drug delivery and direct therapy. However, bulk synthetic approaches can suffer from poor reproducibility and scalability when precise size control or multi-step procedures are required. Herein, we report an integrated microfluidic chip for the synthesis of polymer NPs. The chip could sequentially perform homopolymer synthesis and subsequent crosslinking into NPs without intermediate purification. This was made possible by fabrication of the chip with a fluorinated elastomer and incorporation of two microfluidic mixers. The first was a long channel with passive mixing features for the aqueous RAFT synthesis of stimuli-responsive polymers in ambient conditions. T

SUBMITTER: Montalbo RCK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11000227 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature