Hollow submicron spheres fabricated from cyanoacrylate instant adhesive

摘要

Hollow spherical particles of less than 1 mm, consisting of either single or multi-voids have several advantages, including low effective density and high surface specificity. Moreover, particles with dimensions ＜ 100 nm are known to selectively access cancer cells through enlarged porous surfaces of blood vessels in tumor tissues, and the drug delivery systems with these submicron spheres have been studied intensively in recent years. In this paper, we demonstrate a novel and cost-effective method to fabricate hollow submicron spheres with polymer shells by simply pumping the vapor of a commonly used instant adhesive into a citric acid solution to form microbubbles. The main component of the instant adhesive is a cyanoacrylate monomer, which is polymerized within seconds in the presence of water; however in the case of the citric acid solution, the polymerization occurs at a much slower rate. The polymer shell is composed of a stable biocompatible material, Lised for adhesion to human tissue, i.e., skin, blood vessels and organs. Moreover, the dimension of the fabricated submicron sphere is less than 1 μm in diameter, (one-tenth the size of a blood capillary; approximately 10 μm), making them suitable for use as a hollow nanocarrier in drug delivery applications, including cancer research.