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    Emulsion soft templating of carbide-derived carbon nanospheres with controllable porosity for capacitive electrochemical energy storage
    (Cambridge : Royal Society of Chemistry, 2015) Oschatz, Martin; Zeiger, Marco; Jaeckel, Nicolas; Strubel, Patrick; Borchardt, Lars; Reinhold, Romy; Nickel, Winfried; Eckert, Jürgen; Presser, Volker; Kaskel, Stefan
    A new approach to produce carbide-derived carbon nanospheres of 20-200 nm in diameter based on a novel soft-templating technique is presented. Platinum catalysis is used for the cross-linking of liquid (allylhydrido)polycarbosilane polymer chains with para-divinylbenzene within oil-in-water miniemulsions. Quantitative implementation of the pre-ceramic polymer can be achieved allowing precise control over the resulting materials. After pyrolysis and high-temperature chlorine treatment, resulting particles offer ideal spherical shape, very high specific surface area (up to 2347 m^2/g^-1), and large micro/mesopore volume (up to 1.67 cm^3/g^-1). The internal pore structure of the nanospheres is controllable by the composition of the oil phase within the miniemulsions. The materials are highly suitable for electrochemical double-layer capacitors with high specific capacitances in aqueous 1 M Na2SO4 solution (110 F/g^-1) and organic 1 M tetraethylammonium tetrafluoroborate in acetonitrile (130 F/g^-1).
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    Microfluidic fabrication of polyethylene glycol microgel capsules with tailored properties for the delivery of biomolecules
    (Cambridge : RSC, 2017) Guerzoni, Luis P. B.; Bohl, Jan; Jans, Alexander; Rose, Jonas C.; Koehler, Jens; Kuehne, Alexander J. C.; De Laporte, Laura
    Microfluidic encapsulation platforms have great potential not only in pharmaceutical applications but also in the consumer products industry. Droplet-based microfluidics is increasingly used for the production of monodisperse polymer microcapsules for biomedical applications. In this work, a microfluidic technique is developed for the fabrication of monodisperse double emulsion droplets, where the shell is crosslinked into microgel capsules. A six-armed acrylated star-shaped poly(ethylene oxide-stat-propylene oxide) pre-polymer is used to form the microgel shell after a photo-initiated crosslinking reaction. The synthesized microgel capsules are hollow, enabling direct encapsulation of large amounts of multiple biomolecules with the inner aqueous phase completely engulfed inside the double emulsion droplets. The shell thickness and overall microgel sizes can be controlled via the flow rates. The morphology and size of the shells are characterized by cryo-SEM. The encapsulation and retention of 10 kDa FITC-dextran and its microgel degradation mediated release are monitored by fluorescence microscopy. © 2017 The Royal Society of Chemistry.