Patel, Mehzabin;
Alvarez-Fernandez, Alberto;
Fornerod, Maximiliano Jara;
Radhakrishnan, Anand NP;
Taylor, Alaric;
Ten Chua, Singg;
Vignolini, Silvia;
... Guldin, Stefan; + view all
(2023)
Liquid Crystal-Templated Porous Microparticles via Photopolymerization of Temperature-Induced Droplets in a Binary Liquid Mixture.
ACS Omega
, 8
(23)
pp. 20404-20411.
10.1021/acsomega.3c00490.
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Abstract
Porous polymeric microspheres are an emerging class of materials, offering stimuli-responsive cargo uptake and release. Herein, we describe a new approach to fabricate porous microspheres based on temperature-induced droplet formation and light-induced polymerization. Microparticles were prepared by exploiting the partial miscibility of a thermotropic liquid crystal (LC) mixture composed of 4-cyano-4'-pentylbiphenyl (5CB, unreactive mesogens) with 2-methyl-1,4-phenylene bis4-[3-(acryloyloxy)propoxy] benzoate (RM257, reactive mesogens) in methanol (MeOH). Isotropic 5CB/RM257-rich droplets were generated by cooling below the binodal curve (20 °C), and the isotropic-to-nematic transition occurred after cooling below 0 °C. The resulting 5CB/RM257-rich droplets with radial configuration were subsequently polymerized under UV light, resulting in nematic microparticles. Upon heating the mixture, the 5CB mesogens underwent a nematic-isotropic transition and eventually became homogeneous with MeOH, while the polymerized RM257 preserved its radial configuration. Repeated cycles of cooling and heating resulted in swelling and shrinking of the porous microparticles. The use of a reversible materials templating approach to obtain porous microparticles provides new insights into binary liquid manipulation and potential for microparticle production.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Liquid Crystal-Templated Porous Microparticles via Photopolymerization of Temperature-Induced Droplets in a Binary Liquid Mixture |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1021/acsomega.3c00490 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.3c00490 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Chemical Engineering |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10172238 |
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