Discontinuous Dewetting in a Degassed Mold for Fabrication of Homogeneous Polymeric Microparticles

Hyeon Ung Kim, Yoon Ho Roh, Seok Joon Mun, Ki Wan Bong

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Discontinuous dewetting (DD) is an attractive technique that enables the production of large liquid arrays in microwells and is applicable to the synthesis of anisotropic microparticles with complex morphologies. However, such loading of liquids into microwells presents a significant challenge, as the liquids used in this technique should exhibit low mold surface wettability. This study introduces DD in a degassed mold (DM), a simple yet powerful technique that achieves uniform loading of microparticle precursors into large microwell arrays within 1 min. Using this technique, hydrogel microparticles are produced by different polymerization mechanisms with various shapes and sizes, ranging from a few micrometers to hundreds of micrometers. Hydrophobic oil microparticles are produced by the simple plasma treatment of the DM, and agarose microparticles encapsulating bovine serum albumin (in a well-dispersed state) are produced by submerging the DM in fluorinated oil. To demonstrate additional functionality of microparticles using this technique, high concentrations of magnetic nanoparticles are loaded into microparticles for particle-based immunoassays performed in a microwell plate, and the immunoassay performance is comparable to that of ELISA.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)53318-53327
Number of pages10
JournalACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
Volume12
Issue number47
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020 Nov 25

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Engineering Research Center of Excellence Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (NRF-2016R1A5A1010148) and the Next-Generation Biogreen 21 Program funded by Rural Development Administration of Republic of Korea (No. PJ013158). This research was also supported by the Basic Science Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2018R1D1A1B07046577).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 American Chemical Society.

Keywords

  • anisotropic microparticle
  • degassed mold
  • discontinuous dewetting
  • fluorinated oil
  • hydrogel
  • magnetic nanoparticle

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science

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