Facile preparation of PMMA@PLA core-shell microspheres by PTFE membrane emulsification
writer：Jinxue Cheng;Naijia Zhao; Yuxin Zhang; Yan Huang*; Qinglin Huang*; Changfa Xiao
keywords：PMMA@PLA microsphere, Core-shell, Membrane emulsification (ME), PTFE membrane
source：期刊
Issue time：2022年
Uniform-sized core-shell microspheres have received more and more attentions owing to the therapeutic application such as controlled release and drug targeting. In this work, we proposed a facile method to fabricate core-shell microspheres with uniform size. Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA)@polylactic acid (PLA) core-shell microspheres with controllable core and shell size were prepared by combining membrane emulsification (ME) technology and solvent evaporation method. Specially, the near-field electrospinning (NFES) poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) membranes and biaxially stretched PTFE membranes were utilized in the ME process. Subsequently, a series of PMMA@PLA core-shell microspheres were successfully prepared, where the core size of microspheres depended on the hydrophobic NFES PTFE membrane while the shell size depended on the hydrophilic biaxially stretched PTFE membrane. Meanwhile, the variation of droplet size and distribution with the evaporation temperature, pressure and continuous phase rotating speed were also investigated. When the solvent evaporation temperature was 40 °C, the obtained PMMA@PLA core-shell microspheres showed optimal morphology and size distribution. Moreover, the shell size increased with the increase of operating pressure and the decrease of continuous phase rotating speed. This facile strategy showed great potential for efficiently preparing uniform-sized core-shell microspheres in large scale.