All Things Small and Spherical

摘要

A simple fluidic device that can be used to generate uniform micro-spheres, which are useful for a range of applications such as drug or dye encapsulation or tissue engineering, has been developed by Younan Xia and coworkers at Washington University in St. Louis. The device consists of a PVC tube with a glass capillary attached to the end with a syringe needle inserted into the glass capillary, ensuring separation between the organic solvent in the discontinuous phase and the PVC. By varying flow rate and polymer concentration, microspheres with precisely controlled particle sizes can be formed from a variety of materials. The resultant monodispersed micro-spheres can be crystallized into close-packed lattices using a tapping method based on solvent evaporation.