Microfluidic synthesis of highly spherical hydrogels for encapsulation and sustained release of antifouling drug

抄録

The drug Irgarol is a kind of algaecide and pervasively used in long-life antifouling coatings for marine applications and building materials recently. Here, we report a continuous process for producing highly spherical calcium alginate (Ca-alginate) hydrogel particles based on external gelation using on-chip calcium chloride (CaCl₂) emulsion reactant for sustained release of encapsulated drug Iragrol. For the purpose of this study, we firstly encapsulated drug Irgarol inside the Ca-alginate hydrogels with average diameter ~160µm and CV of 4.2%. The microgel particles had a highly spherical shapes with average roundness over 0.96. Then the release speed of encapsulated Irgarol in pure water was measured by UV-Vis spectroscopy. The encapsulated drug had stable and controllable release rates compared the naked drug without encapsulation. The antifouling effects of released drug Irgarol were also demonstrated with water grass (Bacopa monnieri).