Synthesis of liquid-filled polymeric nanocapsules : morphology analysis, role of surfactant and the use of living polymerization techniques

The ability to synthesize nanostructures has become more significant during recent years due to the importance of their applications. In polymer chem. this trend is esp. true in the core/shell synthesis of structured particles. The synthesis route of core/shell particles with liq. cores is slightly different from the conventional emulsion polymn. systems because of the high hydrophobicity and low water soly. of the core oil. In this study this problem was overcome by the introduction of ultrasonic dispersion, which resulted in the direct introduction of core oil into micelles. In situ miniemulsion polymn. was used to create core/shell particles with liq. cores. The influence of surfactant concn. on particle size was investigated and it was shown that particle size could be controlled. Results were compared to classical miniemulsion results and trends were explained. The study was further expanded to the investigation of controlled miniemulsion polymn. techniques to control the mol. architecture of synthesized core/shell latexes. [on SciFinder (R)]