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Microfluidic-assisted production of poly(ɛ-caprolactone) and cellulose acetate nanoparticles: effects of polymers, surfactants, and flow rate ratios

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Abstract

This work aimed at comparing two different microfluidic-assisted nanoparticles (NPs) based on poly(ɛ-caprolactone) (PCL) and cellulose acetate (CA) in terms of size, size distribution, and morphology by changing the flow rate ratios and surfactants. At the same polymer solutions concentration [0.05 (%w/v)], the DLS and FE-SEM results showed that CA NPs have the average diameter (~ 37 nm) and PDI (0.035) less than PCL ones. It was also found that the change of surface tension between the polymers and non-solvent phases using poly(vinyl alcohol) or Tween 80 could remarkably increase the diameter of PCL NPs. Finally, the impact of channel length as a function of mixing efficiency on the size of NPs was theoretically discussed via Reynolds and Peclet numbers. The results indicated that the Peclet numbers pertaining to the required length and time of mixing were more than 100, leading to the smaller channel length for effective mixing.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their sincere thanks from the research council of University of Tehran for the experimental services in this work.

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  1. Nano-Biopolymers Research Laboratory, School of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, P. O. Box, 11155-4563, Tehran, Iran

    Atefe Sadeghi Lari, Alireza Khatibi & Payam Zahedi

  2. Laboratory of Bio-Analysis, Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics (IBB), University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

    Hedayatollah Ghourchian

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  1. Atefe Sadeghi Lari
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Lari, A.S., Khatibi, A., Zahedi, P. et al. Microfluidic-assisted production of poly(ɛ-caprolactone) and cellulose acetate nanoparticles: effects of polymers, surfactants, and flow rate ratios. Polym. Bull. 78, 5449–5466 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-020-03367-1

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