Interfacial assembly of dendritic microcapsules with host–guest chemistry

Yu Zheng, Ziyi Yu, Richard M. Parker, Yuchao Wu, Chris Abell and Oren A. Scherman ()
Additional contact information
Yu Zheng: Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK
Ziyi Yu: University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK
Richard M. Parker: University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK
Yuchao Wu: Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK
Chris Abell: University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK
Oren A. Scherman: Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK

Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract The self-assembly of nanoscale materials to form hierarchically ordered structures promises new opportunities in drug delivery, as well as magnetic materials and devices. Herein, we report a simple means to promote the self-assembly of two polymers with functional groups at a water–chloroform interface using microfluidic technology. Two polymeric layers can be assembled and disassembled at the droplet interface using the efficiency of cucurbit[8]uril (CB[8]) host–guest supramolecular chemistry. The microcapsules produced are extremely monodisperse in size and can encapsulate target molecules in a robust, well-defined manner. In addition, we exploit a dendritic copolymer architecture to trap a small hydrophilic molecule in the microcapsule skin as cargo. This demonstrates not only the ability to encapsulate small molecules but also the ability to orthogonally store both hydrophilic and hydrophobic cargos within a single microcapsule. The interfacially assembled supramolecular microcapsules can benefit from the diversity of polymeric materials, allowing for fine control over the microcapsule properties.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6772 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms6772

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6772

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().