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ISSN: 1546-9239 (Print)
ISSN: 1554-3641 (Online)
Research Article Open Access

Mass Production of Uniformly Sized Air-Filled Poly-Lactic Acid Microcapsules Made from Microbubble Templates

Jay Molino1, Svetlana Jojlova1, Hirofumi Daiguji2 and Fumio Takemura3
  • 1 Department of Biomedical Engineering, Universidad Especializada de las Américas, Paseo Albrook, 00629 Panamá, Panama
  • 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Univerity of Tokyo, 7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-Ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
  • 3 National Institute of Industrial Sciences and Technology, Umezono 1-1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8568, Japan

Abstract

Hollow poly(Lactic Acid) (PLA) microcapsules were fabricated using the bubble template method. In this method, microbubbles nucleated inside droplets of a dichloromethane solution of PLA which were located in a continuous phase of poly(vinyl alcohol). PLA-covered microbubbles formed when PLA adsorbed to the bubble surface by physisorption. Then, the coated microbubbles were spontaneously released from the droplet´s interior into the continuous phase. To increase the production yield of hollow microcapsules in this method, ultrasound was applied to enhance bubble nucleation inside the droplets. Thus to attain uniform hollow PLA microcapsules, the optimum PLA concentration with ultrasound was 30 g L-1, which is higher than that without ultrasound (2 g L-1). At the optimum concentration, the average radius was 0.54 μm, with a polydispersity index of 21.2%. It was found that the equilibrium size of the microbubble template radius was the same with and without ultrasound. The production yield had a tenfold increase when ultrasound was employed.

American Journal of Applied Sciences
Volume 16 No. 7, 2019, 213-224

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/ajassp.2019.213.224

Submitted On: 1 February 2019 Published On: 20 August 2019

How to Cite: Molino, J., Jojlova, S., Daiguji, H. & Takemura, F. (2019). Mass Production of Uniformly Sized Air-Filled Poly-Lactic Acid Microcapsules Made from Microbubble Templates. American Journal of Applied Sciences, 16(7), 213-224. https://doi.org/10.3844/ajassp.2019.213.224

Open AccessCopyright: © 2019 Jay Molino, Svetlana Jojlova, Hirofumi Daiguji and Fumio Takemura. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Keywords

  • Biodegradable Microcapsules
  • Drug Delivery
  • Mass Production of Hollow Capsules
  • Microencapsulation
  • Ultrasound Enhanced Fabrication
  • Ultrasound Contrast Agents