Synthesis and characterization of hollow microcapsules from bio-inspired crosslinkable polymers

R.E.GIMENEZ; R.M.S. ALVAREZ; F.E. MORAN VIEYRA; D.M. MARTINO; C. BORSARELLI

San Antonio

Conferencia; 3rd International Conference and Exhibition on Materials Science & Engineering; 2014

Highly uniform CaCO3 microparticles were synthesized by two different methods to develop a cheaper procedure with greater control of the experimental variables. Co-polyelectrolites containing vinylbencyl thymine (VBT) and either vinylbenzyl triethylammonium chloride (VBA) or vinylphenyl sulphonate (VPS) were used to form hollow microcapsules (MCs) via layer by layer (LbL) sequential adsorption on CaCO3. The CaCO3 sacrificial templates were removed later with EDTA solutions. CaCO3 filled and hollow microcapsules were obtained after deposition of 3 alternated polyelectrolyte layers. Fluorescein dye was used for the FM visualization of the MCs, which were ~4.5 mm of average diameter. The removal of CaCO3 by EDTA was monitored by Raman Spectroscopy (RS). The microparticles and microcapsules were characterized by Fluorescence Microscopy (FM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM).