In this work, we present programming the release properties of biocompatible and biodegradable poly(DL-lactic-co-glycolic) acid (PLGA) microcapsules by using water-in-oil-in-water (W/O/W) double emulsions as templates. These microcapsules can encapsulate both hydrophilic and hydrophobic agents, and their release sequence can be �programmed� by changing the morphology of PLGA microcapsules and incorporating gold nanorods.  The PLGA microcapsules with uniform core-shell morphology release the inner hydrophilic encapsulants upon near-infrared light irradiation, whereas snowman-like microcapsules release hydrophobic encapsulants under the same condition. We also demonstrate that the size of PLGA microcapsules can be tuned by osmotic pressure annealing. The final size of PLGA microcapsules depends on the initial size of inner droplets and the salt concentration of both the inner and the outer aqueous phases. The osmotic pressure annealing offers a straightforward method to control the size of microcapsules as well as the concentration of encapsulated species. Our findings provide critical guidelines in designing programmable microcapsules for various biomedical applications that require sequential release of agents of different polarity.

Programming the release properties of microcapsules

245th National Meeting (2013)

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