A one-component emulsion templating strategy for the preparation of inorganic-organic encapsulated droplets and hollow capsules has been developed. The process exploits, and relies on, both branched addition co-polymer architectures and compositions, which provide simultaneous properties of emulsion droplet steric-stabilisation and cross-linking function. It was demonstrated that high yielding encapsulation of different hydrophobic actives was successful whilst retaining the structural integrity of the capsule compartments. Responsive capsule surfaces and shell/membrane properties with pre-determined complex functionalities were demonstrated. The incorporation of chemical functionality within the reactive branched addition co-polymer allowed higher order responsive structures to be formed. These materials have been shown to be highly useful in the preparation of large associated aggregates which can be loaded with numerous payloads. The encapsulation of both hydrophobic dyes and an oil-soluble polymer was illustrated. Protocell constructs with pH-mediated, electrostatically gated permeability were prepared by covalently grafting a multi-responsive functional terpolymer to the outer surface of a cross-linked membrane of silica nanoparticle-based colloidosomes. Terpolymer grafted membrane functionality-mediated uptake and release of small molecules from the colloidosomes was demonstrated.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:668227 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Harbron, Rachel |
| Contributors | Jones, Julian |
| Publisher | Imperial College London |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/26591 |
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