From the perspective of their widespread use in daily life, stable suspensions are particularly useful, such as foods (batters, puddings, sauces), pharmaceuticals (pharmaceutical formulations ensuring uniform dosing), household products (paints and inks), and the petroleum industry (drilling fluids, cementing slurries). In order to obtain a reasonably stable suspension, a cumbersome dispersion method is needed, and some stabilizing electrolyte or surfactant must be present as well. In this work, a stable suspension was obtained by simply increasing the temperature of an aqueous polymer solution. The polymer has three major components: polyethylene glycol (PEG), polyphenylene oxide (PPO), and hyperbranched polyglycerol (HPG). When the solution temperature is lower than the lower critical solution temperature (LCST), the polymer is completely dissolved in water. When the temperature of the solution is higher than the LCST, the polymer becomes insoluble in water and self-assembles into microparticles. By adjusting the polymer composition, the suspension containing microparticles can be stable for over 6 months without particle precipitation. The LCST of the polymer can be adjusted from 15°C to 45°C. The polymer is synthesized from commonly used monomers through a one-pot synthesis procedure. Therefore, the price will be relatively low. In addition, all polymer components have excellent biocompatibility and will not cause human and environmental toxicity. All these features make the suspension suitable for applications in pharmaceuticals, household products, and other products.

Super-stable suspension based on thermo-responsive polymers

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.