The softness of polymer nanoparticles is advantageous in a myriad of applications based on their characteristics such as accommodating active components in their cores and revealing flexible surfaces to interact with targeted objects. Controlled structural aspects of the polymer nanoparticles such as size, shape, morphology, internal softness, interior cross-linking, and core composition determine their impact on the cargo loading capacity and controlled/sustained release, the possibility of endocytosis, and degradability during their biomedical application. The designed interfacial features, on the other side, such as stimuli-responsive surfaces, wrinkling, surface porosity, shell-layer swellability, layer-by-layer surface functionalization, surface charge, surface roughness, and textures regulate nanoparticles’ interfacial interactions, controlled assembly, movement and collision, and compatibility with the surroundings like a solvent and biological environments. These characteristics define polymer nanoparticles’ overall properties/functions based on homogeneity, stability, interfacial tension, and minimization of the surface energy barrier. If nanoparticles are not uniform in their size or shape, the resultant outcome may be significantly lower directly related to the concept of structure-function relationship. Therefore, a key requirement is to produce well-defined and uniform polymer nanoparticles with controlled characteristics. In general, polymers are amorphous (or semi-crystalline), flexible, and soft, and hence controlling their structural/interfacial features through the single-step process is a challenge. In this regard, the microfluidic reaction strategy is very promising because of its wide range of advantages such as efficient reactant mixing and fast phase transfer. Here, the state-of-the-art fundamental characteristics of the polymer nanoparticles are presented through experimental results. We have applied a semi-microfluidic approach where initial emulsification has been formed inside the microfluidic channel and the completion of polymerization conducted externally. Therefore the overall process of the formation of polymer nanoparticles is semi-microfluidics.

Size and shape-tunable soft polymer nanoparticles <i>via </i>semi-microfluidic syntheses

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Size and shape-tunable soft polymer nanoparticles via semi-microfluidic syntheses