A flicking method for generation of polymer microbeads

抄録

A variety of microencapsulation technology has been developed to encapsulate drugs, cells and food. However, previous microencapsulation systems were associated with complex design, requirements of high voltage supply, post cleaning process and consuming large volume of reagents. This work proposed a simple yet efficient flicking system for the production of calcium alginate microbeads. In the system, a flicking device was designed to disperse microdroplets of sodium alginate ejecting from a syringe pump and the microbeads were polymerised in the calcium chloride solution. The size of the microbeads produced using this system can be controlled by changing the flow rate (5, 10, and 15 µl/min) of the syringe pump and fixing the motor rotation speed of the flicking device at 90 rpm. The microbeads of calcium alginate produced using the flicking device were shown to be size controllable in a range of 270 to 430 µm and they have potential for the microencapsulation of cells.